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'Zombie' Satellite Returns To Life
realperseus writes "The American telecommunications satellite Galaxy 15 has been brought under control after spending most of the year traversing the sky and wreaking havoc upon its neighbors. The satellite is currently at 98.5 degrees west longitude (from 133 west). An emergency patch was successfully uploaded, ensuring that the conditions which caused it to 'go rogue' will not occur again. Once diagnosis and testing have been completed, Intelsat plans to move the satellite back to 133 west."
But the satellite is now UNdead! Doesn't that make it MORE of a zombie?
It's worth comparing it with the venerable AO-7 satellite, which was launched in 1974 and eventually "died" when its battery failed dead short in 1981. A little over ten years later, the failed battery failed again, this time going *open* circuit and allowing the satellite to run entirely off its solar panels. So, while the satellite is illuminated by the Sun it works fairly reliably. You need to keep the power down, because it has a linear transponder so the more power you put in the more comes out - until you exceed the tiny amount produced by the solar cells. It works, though, and people communicate across the world on it every day.
What impresses me most is that you can just upload patches to orbiting satellites. Sounds like a party for the next DEFCON...