This is ridiculous... all these stories about zombiesats and television catastrophes based on this meandering satellite are complete rubbish. The satellite is not responding to control commands, which is essentially the same as a satellite that has lost all propellant without having been moved to a "graveyard orbit." There are many old satellites still in GEO orbit that can no longer be controlled. Take a look at the area around 75 East (http://www.sat-nd.com/geo/) for all the satellites with names like Raduga and Cosmos. They swing back and forth near 75East (one of the GEO libration points) forever.
Other satellite operators have to use propellant to move their active satellites out of the way of these uncontrollable satellites. It's not really that hard, considering the distances involved. The GEO arc is approximately 265,000 km long. Each degree is ~735 km wide. Typical spacing between satellites is 1.5to 3 or ~1,100 to 2,200 km. When in a satellite is in motion relative to a geostationary satellite, it will either be at a higher (moving westward) or lower (moving eastward) altitude. Uncontrollable satellites also begin to exhibit inclination or North/South movement relative to the equator up to a maximum of 15.
This zombiesat will drift along the GEO orbit very slowly relative to other geostationary satellites, in an enormous area. It is trivial for other satellite operators to move their satellites out of the way. Even if there were a collision event with another GEO satellite, it would be nothing like the Iridium collision, as the relative velocity between the two objects involved would be very low. Compare a parking lot fender bender to a head-on freeway collision.
The biggest problem is that the payload on the satellite is still active and transmitting. Most GEO satellites act like bent pipes: they listen for transmissions at a certain frequency, receive and amplify those transmissions, and then change the frequency (usually lower) for retransmission back towards Earth. Usually a satellite will feature some systems to prevent overload of the transponders/amplifiers by shutting down the affected amplifier. It sounds like this is what the operator and satellite manufacturer tried to do unsuccessfully. After passing the nearest neighbor satellite, they will likely try this again.
Eventually, without control updates from the ground, the satellite will lose its lock on the Earth/Moon/Sun/Stars and be unable to orient its solar panels towards the sun. The onboard batteries will quickly drain of power (in less than 24 hours), at which point the satellite's payload will shut down, and it will be essentially dead. That should happen some time in the next month or two.
As others have said, antisatellite kinetic weapons would be useless at GEO orbit. The only conceivable method to "destroy" a GEO satellite would be to use a space-based laser system to try to burn out the satellite's brain. The risk involved in something like that far outweighs the potential benefits, since it is more likely that the laser would burn a hole in the satellite's propellant tanks, turning it into a high speed projectile or (worse) causing the satellite to break up into small pieces.
So just sit back, relax, and let the satellites dance.
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This is ridiculous... all these stories about zombiesats and television catastrophes based on this meandering satellite are complete rubbish. The satellite is not responding to control commands, which is essentially the same as a satellite that has lost all propellant without having been moved to a "graveyard orbit." There are many old satellites still in GEO orbit that can no longer be controlled. Take a look at the area around 75 East (http://www.sat-nd.com/geo/) for all the satellites with names like Raduga and Cosmos. They swing back and forth near 75East (one of the GEO libration points) forever.
Other satellite operators have to use propellant to move their active satellites out of the way of these uncontrollable satellites. It's not really that hard, considering the distances involved. The GEO arc is approximately 265,000 km long. Each degree is ~735 km wide. Typical spacing between satellites is 1.5to 3 or ~1,100 to 2,200 km. When in a satellite is in motion relative to a geostationary satellite, it will either be at a higher (moving westward) or lower (moving eastward) altitude. Uncontrollable satellites also begin to exhibit inclination or North/South movement relative to the equator up to a maximum of 15.
This zombiesat will drift along the GEO orbit very slowly relative to other geostationary satellites, in an enormous area. It is trivial for other satellite operators to move their satellites out of the way. Even if there were a collision event with another GEO satellite, it would be nothing like the Iridium collision, as the relative velocity between the two objects involved would be very low. Compare a parking lot fender bender to a head-on freeway collision.
The biggest problem is that the payload on the satellite is still active and transmitting. Most GEO satellites act like bent pipes: they listen for transmissions at a certain frequency, receive and amplify those transmissions, and then change the frequency (usually lower) for retransmission back towards Earth. Usually a satellite will feature some systems to prevent overload of the transponders/amplifiers by shutting down the affected amplifier. It sounds like this is what the operator and satellite manufacturer tried to do unsuccessfully. After passing the nearest neighbor satellite, they will likely try this again.
Eventually, without control updates from the ground, the satellite will lose its lock on the Earth/Moon/Sun/Stars and be unable to orient its solar panels towards the sun. The onboard batteries will quickly drain of power (in less than 24 hours), at which point the satellite's payload will shut down, and it will be essentially dead. That should happen some time in the next month or two.
As others have said, antisatellite kinetic weapons would be useless at GEO orbit. The only conceivable method to "destroy" a GEO satellite would be to use a space-based laser system to try to burn out the satellite's brain. The risk involved in something like that far outweighs the potential benefits, since it is more likely that the laser would burn a hole in the satellite's propellant tanks, turning it into a high speed projectile or (worse) causing the satellite to break up into small pieces.
So just sit back, relax, and let the satellites dance.