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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.
but it's the only way to be sure!
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"
And nothing of value was lost.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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?
no thats just comcast service as usual.
Too high.
The recent anti-sat missiles which China and the USA tested just took out satellites which were in low earth orbit, 400km max. This satellite is in a geosynchronous orbit, which is about 36,000 km high (and for reference, the moon is 380,000 km away, so a moon-earth Lagrange point would make a little more sense).
And these anti-sat missiles don't even have to reach a 400 km orbit, an epileptic orbit which would intersect with earth again (but happens to intersect with another satellite first) is sufficient, that is why they could be launched from a warship. Not that taking down a geostationary sat would be impossible - since they don't zip overhead with 25,000 km/h it could actually be easier, but these weapons are not build for it and would need another booster base.
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.
"epileptic orbit"
I'd love to see an orbit do that!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
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.
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.
Slashdot?
(I kid, I kid)
You underestimate the power of sudo.
It has something to do with the mass of the Earth. These points line up pretty well with the Rocky Mountains and the Himalayas. These areas are known as gravity wells and all Geo satellites try to drift there. As operational satellites drift, they are command back into their orbital slot by their operators. Some satellite operators will purposely position their satellites at the wells as there is less fuel required to keep them in their orbital. Dead satellites drift towards the closet well, slingshot past them, and then come back. Occasionally they will swing back and forth between the two wells. It takes several months to swing back and forth. The satellites also gain inclination over time (15 years) before they hit a certain orbital point and then their inclination drifts back down to zero, and repeat. The inclination drift is said to be due to the Moon, however, it's tied the the satellites Right Ascension of the Ascending Node (RAAN), something that's independent of the Moon. Regardless, over time these satellites that die on the "Geo-belt" only really cross the operational satellites twice a day because of their inclination. US law requires satellite operators to dispose of their GEO satellites into a graveyard orbit before they die, but you can't really do that when it stops responding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_orbit
Are you kidding? Imagine this happening during the last episode of Lost.. It would make the Rodney King riots look like a day at the beach...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Duhh, nuke the debris with a second one. ;-)
Unless this is PART of the last episode of Lost...MAN they're good!