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Geostationary GPS Satellite Galaxy 15 Out of Control
Bruce Perens writes "The Galaxy 15 commercial satellite has not responded to commands since solar flares fried its CPU in April, and it won't turn off. Intelsat controllers moved all commercial payloads to other birds except for WAAS, a system that adds accuracy to GPS for landing aircraft and finding wayward geocaches. Since the satellite runs in 'bent pipe' mode, amplifying wide bands of RF that are beamed up to it, it is likely to interfere with other satellites as it crosses their orbital slots on its way to an earth-sun Lagrange point, the natural final destination of a geostationary satellite without maneuvering power." (More below.)
Bruce continues: "The only payload that is still deliberately active on the satellite is its WAAS repeater. An attempt to overload the satellite and shut it down on May 3 caused a Notice to Airmen regarding the unavailability of WAAS for an hour. Unsaid is what will happen to WAAS, and for how long, when the satellite eventually loses its sun-pointing capability, expected later this year, and stops repeating the GPS correction signal. Other satellites can be moved into Galaxy 15's orbital slot, but it is yet unannounced whether the candidates bear the WAAS payload."
Nuke the rogue satellite in the orbit.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Haven't the military got some super satellite-busting weapon they've been dying to test?
No sig today...
And create all that space debris that will jeopardize countless other satellites?
Here's a list of what AMC-11 is used for on Lyngsat.
Basically, if this wayward sat gets in the way, the average cable/DBS subscriber in the USA is going to wonder where half their digital channels went.
but it's the only way to be sure!
It should be mentioned that the stable libration points for geostationary satellites are earth-relative (105 deg west, 75 deg east) and are not the same as the Sun-Earth lagrange points (such as those occupied by SOHO and other observation satellites). If we could get spacecraft without maneuvering capability to perform that orbital transfer, we'd be much closer to living in a Star Trek-esque world.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
After sending between 150,000 and 200,000 commands to the satellite to coax it back into service, Intelsat was forced to scrap its satellite-recovery efforts and to resort, on Monday, to a limited-duration effort to force the satellite to shut down its transponders. This was to be accomplished by sending a stronger series of signals designed to cause Galaxy 15's power system to malfunction and force a shutdown of the satellite's payload. That attempt, which Luxembourg-based, Washington-headquartered Intelsat had viewed as its last, best-understood option for Galaxy 15, was unsuccessful.
The last message from the satellite was "I'm sorry, Intelsat. I'm afraid I can't do that."
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
In 1998, Galaxy IV blew out, which controlled commercial communications for a metric assload of services (including my former employer's dealership communications network, FordStar). I (and every other remote admin) got a $50 bounty per dish that we hurriedly re-pointed to a different satellite. Cleaned the whole thing up across the global network (four continents) in less than three weeks.
I'm fairly sure that cable TV, which has more sats on tap and relatively less dishes to re-position (and nobody has to crawl on top of a zillion roofs with a wrench and a compass in hand), could likely recover in very short order - probably hours.
That said, there's always the danger of a chain reaction (after all, there's a LOT of satellites in geosync orbit) - if not at this time, then certainly in the coming future, as the numbers continue to increase.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I remember turning my big satellite dish towards galaxy sats. Trying to unscramble the pr0n channels. I sold all my equipment years ago but still miss the big monster and waiting on it to lock in to whatever satellite I was after.
I nearly killed my wife with my C-Band satellite dish. She was on the riding lawnmower and I moved the dish to a satellite that required it to aim very low in the southern sky. She didnt see it moving in time as she was looking at the right front wheel because she thought it was getting low on air. A trip to the hospital with 15 stitches and a mild concussion and it was time to sell and buy a DirectTV dish. Looking back I should have just gotten rid of my wife. It would have been a better deal in the long run.
Tuning... Tuning... Tuning... Tuning... G15 CH40 crap on tv tonight. Tuning... Tuning... Tuning... G17 CH25 Hell yeah porkys is on (dont remember what all channels but it was good times).
none of the GPS satellites are 'hardened' against solar flares. This one went down for just a B flare and the next solar cycle has just begun!
Yes, but it carries a WAAS signal which your consumer "GPS" unit uses to increase the accuracy it's measurements. So, if this gets too far out of position without shutting off, your consumer GPS might get confused. Exact impact hasn't been computed yet.
It has to do with the GPS system tangentially. It's part of the GCCS/WAAS system, which augments the GPS system for flight navigation purposes. It also relays TV signals.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Correct, but it also carried a lot of other traffic. To call it a "GPS satellite" would be like calling it a "religious satellite" if it carries a televangelist channel, or a "financial satellite" if some bank uses it.
Not just consumer GPS use WAAS. It was started by the FAA so that aircraft could safely use GPS instead of radio beacons. Therefore most commercial/industrial GPS use it too. About the only people who don't use it will be surveying GPS, which use DGPS to get even greater accuracy than the WAAS corrected signal.
You've put me in a difficult situation explaining this to you since it appears you read the title but not the summaries or the articles, yet somehow knew that this is a commercial communications satellite. Here's a linky with details on how it *does* have something to do with GPS: http://www.gpsworld.com/gps/news/waas-broadcasting-satellite-having-problems-9810
Since I can't be sure you will read TFL, here's the first paragraph that you probably won't read either:
Intelsat S.A. announced they lost control of their Galaxy 15 (G-15) satellite. G-15 (PRN 135 to GPS users) is one of the two Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) broadcasting satellites (GEOs) that broadcast GPS corrections for aviation and ground users all over North America. Despite the Intelsat announcement, the WAAS payload on G-15 is still broadcasting corrections.
Are there any other sources we can provide that you also won't read?
It isn't GPS, it's WAAS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Area_Augmentation_System which is an "air navigation aid developed by the Federal Aviation Administration to augment the Global Positioning System (GPS), with the goal of improving its accuracy, integrity, and availability. Essentially, WAAS is intended to enable aircraft to rely on GPS for all phases of flight, including precision approaches to any airport within its coverage area."
This is a commercial communications satellite that hasnothing to do with the Global Positioning System
It is not a GPS satellite, in that it is not part of the constellation of satellites that provide position reference. However, as TFA and the other links say, this satellite is one of only two that operate the Wide Area Augmentation System. WAAS uses ground-based GPS receiving stations with known positions to generate a correction signal which increases the accuracy of GPS position fixes to less than 25ft within North America and surrounding areas. Without WAAS, plain GPS can have error in the hundreds of feet. Without the accuracy provided by WAAS, GPS navigation cannot be used for instrument flight approaches - one of the most critical, important, and common uses of GPS today. If this satellite fails, the WAAS system will remain operational throughout most of its original coverage area - but will almost certainly fall outside the reliability limits required for instrument flight certification. It will be a very serious problem for many commercial users of GPS, and possibly for some military applications as well.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
There are No GPS satellites in GEO. They have their own special orbits. The title is really, really wrong... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gps#Space_segment
They forgot to use sudo.
$ reentry_burn
I'm sorry, Intelsat. I'm afraid I can't do that
$ sudo reentry_burn
Reentry burn initiated. Atmospheric entry in +00:15:00
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Tin foil... lots of it.
The game.
Everything is moving in orbit. If one satellite has a different speed from the others then it is moveing relative to them. In practice rocket motors are used for station keeping. If a motor (or the control system) fails then the satellite will not be able to hold station.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Reminded me of this gem from NotAlwaysRight:
Apparently, it is possible for someone to be standing next to your satellite and cause interference, as long as the someone is another satellite. (But it isn't easy to tell them to stop... :P )
Perhaps they can launch and rendezvous a 100 ton steel 'funnel' and fit it over the satellite thus preventing it from spewing tons of satellite pollution toward earth. In fact, such a device has already been built and is currently not being used. Bonus, it's currently located not all that far from Cape Canaveral and transport ships are located nearby.
Number 5 got upgraded, and now is runing amok over our heads.
Haven't they seen Fantastic Four? After a big dose of solar radiation it's probably now self aware and hell bent on causing chaos!
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Light doesn't just illuminate something. It has pressure. If you illuminate a satellite from the proper angle with less than the energy required to blow it apart, for long enough, you can change its orbit.
Bruce Perens.
GPS accuracy isn't that bad. Ground based Differential GPS has an absolute worse case accuracy of 10m lateral/vertical.
$ sudo reentry_burn
"Without your space helmet, Smythe, you're going to find that rather difficult." ; )
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
The Wikipedia article states that the satellite also broadcasts the same information as a "GPS" satellite. Don't know if that makes it a GPS sat or not since it is commerical, but it does all the function of a GPS sat plus more (WAAS).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Area_Augmentation_System
"The space segment consists of multiple geosynchronous communication satellites which broadcast the correction messages generated by the Wide-area Master Stations for reception by the User segment. The satellites also broadcast the same type of range information as normal GPS satellites, effectively increasing the number of satellites available for a position fix..."
Dan
Atmoshperic entry from GEO 15 minutes after reentry burn? No way.
One that hath name thou can not otter
There is, as far as I am aware, a special L-band payload for WAAS. It was contracted to be installed on several communications satellites that are otherwise used for C-band and other civilian bands.
Bruce Perens.
Well, we don't really care about its other functions since they were moved to other C-band satellites without making the news. You can't move WAAS to a C-band-only satellite, you need the special L-band payload.
GPS doesn't work as well without it, but the real reason I used "Geostationary GPS" in the title was that Slashdot would not let me have enough characters in the title to say something more accurate.
Bruce Perens.
You underestimate the power of sudo.
Well it's a good thing all of us pilots know how to fly planes without RNAV and GPS approaches. Right? You did pay attention in IFR training, right?
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
It's coming right for us!
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
The military sure wigged out when one of their shiney new spy sats went DOA on them right after launch, and blew it up from the ground with a laser. Wonder why they're not nearly so anxious to get this one?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Just comcast hits / In Demand not Directv or echostar.
Directv uses fiber and there own sats.
Well it's a good thing all of us pilots know how to fly planes without RNAV and GPS approaches. Right? You did pay attention in IFR training, right?
I am sure a lot of them are incapable of flying VFR without GPS now. Look at all those car drivers who end up in rivers because the GPS shows a way across.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
GPS accuracy isn't that bad. Ground based Differential GPS has an absolute worse case accuracy of 10m lateral/vertical.
Yeah but if the GPS receiver is changing altitude then accuracy can be very poor.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Cable should of used clear QAM for exp basic / non hbo , max , show, ppv and out of market sports. But what we got was paying $6- to up $20 per tv to rent a cable box. A cable card system that the cable co's make in to a joke and very few cable card boxes can do SDV (needs a cable co add on tuner). Tru2way is all most nowhere. The dta's are a joke analog sd only out and you get less then the old analgo line in some areas and you missing out on stuff like YOUR RSN over flow channel forcing you in Chicago Land to pay like $5-$7 per tv to get CSN +.
In the old analog system you just need a box for old tv's and to get PPV and in some systems hbo , max , show, type stuff.
But in Canada you can buy the box and not be forced to rent it.
Now why can't we have more stuff like that?
the UK has live roulette on tv and used to have lot's live quiz shows as well. I miss midnight money madness and the good play playmaina.
+5 funny, indeed!
Sig Return: 204 No Content
From the economy to politics to technology.
Modern culture really is just held together with wads of chewing gum, isn't it?
Technoli
Actually, most of that $5-7 "extra outlet with box" fee is going to the content providers. They want to be paid per TV rather than per subscriber. Even your network affiliated broadcasters collect a fee for being redistributed by cable, and they want an accurate count that those boxes provide.
You don't have to get the cable company box, you could get a newer CableCARD-based "Digital Cable Ready" TV or a TiVo.
AFAIK, WAAS and other Satellite Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) are basically differential-GPS done on a large scale. The position of the satellites doesn't matter, they're simply being used to distribute the correction data on a global scale. Other systems are ground-based and limited in their range.
Also, the usefulness of WAAS/SBAS is greatly diminished since selective available (SA) has been off for over a decade. One disadvantage is that it takes longer for an SBAS-using receiver to get a fix since it has to wait for the correction data to reach it.
Without WAAS, plain GPS can have error in the hundreds of feet.
That's a bit of an exaggeration. It is applicable to first generation GPS receivers and doesn't apply to modern equipment made in the past 10 years or so. I leave WAAS off on my eTrex because the estimated positional accuracy usually gets *worse* with it enabled and it can't be used in power save mode. Without WAAS, I routinely get absolute accuracy to within 19-feet and never above 30 with a strong lock. It wouldn't be able to follow roads if the accuracy was only in the hundreds of feet range.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Some are doing it already http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/21/151225
cable card sucks no VOD no PPV no SDV (most tv) Tivo can do SDV. Also you don't get the cable co guide. Also network affiliated broadcasts are in clear QAM on cable but not the other stuff on most systems.
also sectv let's you Purchase CableCARD for a one-time fee of $125.00 and receive a one-year warranty on the CableCARD from the manufacture so you never have to worry about rental fees again!
and they let you Access to HD Pay-Per-View events with them as well.
they also have Standard Digital Converter ... $2.95 / mo has VOD and on screnn guild. one of the same boxes that comcast wants $5+ /m for.
Ground-based DGPS isn't supported on most GPS receivers without and additional receiver to pull in the differential signal. WAAS is built into almost all aviation GPS receivers.
For those of you who have WXTrack or gPredict or even the rusty old DOS version QuikTrak 4. Here are the 2-Line track elements (from celestrak.com) to plug in to the above software or similar and you can plot the course and collision possibilities yourselves. (Start of Sat ID Line) GALAXY 15 (G-15) (Start of Line 1) 1 28884U 05041A 10127.51136922 .00000076 00000-0 10000-3 0 8255
(Start of Line 2) 2 28884 0.1250 77.0169 0002855 329.6075 230.3636 1.00283287 16733
If you need further help understanding these NORAD 2-Line elesets, please see this page: http://celestrak.com/columns/v04n03/#FAQ01 for the manual key in entry in your tracking software.
Depending on available sunlight angle and sat size, you can also plot the times and locations in the sky of when it is visible, for like re-entry burn up. That's if you happen to be lucky/unlucky to be close enough to see it. From my "Ham radio sat days", it is best to get fresh tracking data, every week, for the best results. I did a lot of this in '94 or '96 and back then it was pretty cool to run a digital signal from a pc linked hand held radio in Kansas and bounce it off of the Soviet MIR space station or sometimes the non-military shuttle hops, just to get to Chicago, IL! Good luck and happy sat hunting!
Shoot 'em down, Shoot 'em down
Shoot 'em down, Shoot 'em down
Shoot 'em down, Shoot 'em down
Shoot 'em down to the ground!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
sudo {gasp}
[JWSmythe realizes he's breathing nothing in the vacuum of space as the pod door opens. The last thing he does is give the finger to the satellite and then press the "Detonate Thermonuclear Device" button on his suit control]
[Brilliant flash, then fade to black]
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
It's just spring break up there. Just follow the trail of empty beer bottles and bikini bottoms.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=14892157-1f2f-4dfc-81e4-0b4120e299f7
Canadian's have a robot in space that's there for hire to help fix problems with satellites and other space craft. I was under the impression that it was supposed to be mobile enough to maneuver into place and deal with this. Wouldn't using Mr. Dextre to alter the course of an out of control satellite be good enough?
LAGRANGE POINTS? Good God almighty? What in the holy heck are you talking about? That's just ridiculous. It's not going to go to the Lagrange points (any of them). If nothing else there's no maneuvering and so the semi-major axis is FIXED at essentially geosynchronous period. What will happen is that that it will drift at varying speeds on the order of fractions of degrees a day, speeding up as it goes towards the gravity wells, passing through at pretty high speeds, then climbing back out, slowing all the time. I haven't checked the TLEs but it will either oscillate back and forth in one of wells or pass from one to the other. Just like dozens of other "died in place" spacecraft that had exactly the same problem. Eventually as the inclination changes it might go over the side of the hill (since the wells are 3-dimensional) like Skynet II/9354. Look that one up, or DSCS II/Flight II/9432 TLEs and history, that's what it's going to do.
Brett
Do all rocks collect on the mountian ridges? As fr as I know sattelites do not end up in the Lagrange points, or those points would already be taken by millions of years of dust collected..If you start there you won't move, but to my knowledge those are unstabile equilibria, so if you are not there, you fall to either the Earth or the Sun or the Moon..
Retro rockets firing NOW... [OK]
Retro burn finished... [OK]
No further user action needed.
Sending all systems the TERM signal...
Sending all systems the KILL signal...
I know it because I happen to be an expert in the field, I could write an article about Galaxy 15 if it weren't for the NDAs. To call it a "GPS satellite" just because it has one transponder dedicated to GPS is wrong, a GPS satellite is one of the dedicated satellites that have 12 hour orbit period.
This reminds me of the joke of the old man who complained "I own a farm and they don't call me a farmer, I own a shop and they don't call me a shopkeeper, I have several trucks and they don't call me a trucker, I have built several houses and they don't call me a builder, but I sucked a cock just once..."
Many commercial satellites have small payloads for special uses. To put anything in geostationary orbit will cost at least $60 million for the launcher alone, so it makes sense to piggyback a small transponder in a bigger satellite.
The reason why I feel it's wrong to call it a GPS satellite is because true GPS satellites need to have their orbits determined to much higher precision. Typically, a commercial satellite has its orbit controlled within a 100 meter precision, if it's collocated with other satellites, or several hundred meters if not. A GPS satellite needs to have its orbit determined with a better than one meter precision.
The WAAS system exchanges precision for reliability in applications like aircraft landing where an outage is inadmissible. There are a few occasions when, due to an unfavorable alignment of the satellites, the GPS is unable to provide a good precision. This situation does not last long, but it could put a landing aircraft in danger if it happens at a bad moment.
The WAAS, being transmitted from geostationary satellites, is always visible from its coverage area, so, although it's not as precise as "true" GPS, it's always there.
WASS is used to provide corrections to upper atmospheric disturbances in the GPS signal. It works like this: you have a lot of beacons on ground, mostly close to the shore but pretty much everywhere in the country. These stations know *exactly* where they are, but they anyway measure their position via GPS. By looking at the difference between what GPS says and what they know, they calculate the effect of these atmospheric disturbances. These are uploaded to a central system and get in turn broadcasted via WASS. WASS signals get used mostly by air and maritime vehicles in the North America. Europe has something similar called EGNOS, that depending on the country it could be used with limited advantage on terrestrial measurements. In Germany for instance, the angle to EGNOS is about 20 degrees which makes it almost impossible to capture free-line-of-sight by anyone that is not airborne or in open waters. Now back to the issue. One WASS satellite is failing. There are two WASS satellites and we are fortunate that the one about to fail is not the most important one. This link has some nice images showing the coverage. Sorry for copy-pasting, it's my first post and don't know how to add tags yet. http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/augmentation-assistance/news/failure-imminent-waas-geo-satellite-9841 The problem is that airspace people don't like single point of failure so having one satellite only is a yellow lamp. How this will affect air traffic is still to be seen. GPS accuracy is about 16m with a good view, and when traveling 200 mph during approach, this is not crucial if you ask me. Maritime is something different. You don't wanna sail in Sweden and hit an underground island because you are 10m too far left. For final approach to runway and landing WASS has never been an enabling technology, so business as usual. The US will either replace the satellite or bring the functionality to another one. Until then, people must know that WASS could be out for a few seconds every once in a while. Nothing new really. None of us here will probably feel anything particular happening in the sky.
I can't help but notice that a Wikipedian is lecturing an expert in the field in an insulting tone. Reading something from the internet is far, far different from knowing firsthand. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The insinuation that the expert is an idiot is very troubling, and the nasty, mocking manner of speech is even worse.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
... located at each individual airport. The airport already knows exactly where it is. It can receive the GPS signal and see how far off it is ... specifically for that airport. Then it would transmit that correction data in real time over a local UHF frequency that can serve approaching planes out to some distance (perhaps 100km). Nearby airports use different frequencies which get selected when the target airport is selected and GPS indicates they are within range.
They could also spend more money and put up a triangulation based TPS that would allow accurate terrestrial positioning independent of GPS. That would be in addition to final approach guidance systems. That is, of course, if you feel warm and cozy about having extra redundant systems serving the airplane you are on.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
This is why I personally only launch eco-friendly and organic all-wood satellites. :)
A.
You might recall they moved rather dramatically in Chile earlier this year. If the point is added precision, that's not a win.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
It's uncomfortable to admit it, but we all know which machine intelligence it really is: SkyNet.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
To be clear, did they just tell us all how we can disable communications satellites? I mean, sending a stronger signal sounds well within the realm of possibilities for an ambitious hacker type. I mean, the hard part would be finding the unnecessary reason to add an Aurdino to the project.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Wow - this has to be in the Top 10 Worst Article Summaries ever on Slashdot. And why is the link pointing to a CSMonitor dupe instead of the original story at Space.com which has the best coverage? Most of the other commenters already pointed out the problems (it's not a GPS satellite, the libration points are not Earth-Moon Lagrange points, etc), so I will just point everyone to the real articles with real facts on this story: http://www.space.com/news/out-of-control-satellite-threatens-others-sn-100503.html http://www.space.com/news/zombiesat-galaxy-15-shutdown-fails-sn-100505.html
"Trying is only the first step towards failure." - Homer
Use it for target practice. The first country to blow it up wins a prize.
Wait, what!? Who are these people, really?
Bomb, this is Lt. Doolittle. You are *not* to detonate in the bomb bay. I repeat, you are NOT to detonate in the bomb bay!
developed by the Federal Aviation Administration ... with the goal of improving its accuracy, integrity, and availability
And now it degrades accuracy, integrity, and availability. gg faa.
Ok is it just me or is this SPACE! All the movies we watch people are so desperate to stay in orbit. All we have to do is fire a small rocket at low speed (pilot able) and push the thing with some force out of our orbit and toward the sun or space. What problems could that cause I wonder!?
what does it mean?
how is babby formed?
Does it really exchange precision for reliability? I thought it worked by determining the path delay to a number of fixed points, where the path delay is a function of the position of the satellite and the presence of different areas of atmospheric refractivity (referred to as "billows"). I don't see how this decreases precision in the name of reliability. The main goal is to increase the full-time vertical precision to a value usable for instrument landing.
Bruce Perens.
Since the satellite runs in 'bent pipe' mode, amplifying wide bands of RF that are beamed up to it
Hunh... did you say that the frontend of this crashed bird will blindly amplify and rebroadcast any signal that hits it? What did you say its coordinates are again?
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.