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from the it-was-obstructing-my-view-of-Venus dept.
Intelsat 29e (IS29e) has failed irrecoverably and is now drifting out of control in Geosynchronous orbit.
The satellite experienced damage on April 7th which caused a propellant leak. This resulted in disruption of service for "maritime, aeronautical and wireless operator customers in the Latin America, Caribbean and North Atlantic regions." While they worked to recover the satellite, a second anomoly occurred, at which point all further efforts to recover the satellite failed.
Luxembourg-based Intelsat has declared its IS-29E a total loss, [this] “means it will continue to drift uncontrolled along its current orbit in GEO,” explains T.S. Kelso, the operator of CelesTrak, a leading source for orbital element sets and related software to keep an eye on satellites and orbital debris.
[...] [T.S.]Kelso tweeted back on April 16th that the current situation with IS-29E “continues to be quite troubling,” with the troubled satellite spiraling around IS-11 & IS-32E. Additionally there are reports of 13 pieces of associated debris, he reported.
IS29e is now drifting around geosynchronous orbit at about 1.2 degrees of longitude per day. This means that it will make a complete circuit of the globe in about 10 months. The other 500 functioning satellites in Geosynchronous orbit will need to keep watch on yet another object and steer clear of it.
An earlier tweet on April 11th by Kelso sheds light on the second anomaly:
Kelso said: “Watched nervously” this morning as IS-29E and NASA’s Tracking Data Relay Satellite 3 “had what we consider a ‘nightmare scenario’ in GEO — a high-speed encounter — (~1 km/s). Let’s wish Intelsat luck on getting IS-29E back under control.”
TDRS 3 was retired in December 2011 and no longer used, it was placed in 'storage' in its current orbit. Presumably lacking sufficient propellant to boost to a graveyard orbit, or with an eye towards making use of it in the future.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 22 2019, @03:52PM (4 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday April 22 2019, @06:41PM (3 children)
To get it down to low earth orbit where the atmosphere can drag the satellite down takes 4km/sec, a satellite might only budget 100m/s or less per year of operation.
Think of it this way; the upper stage of rockets gets the satellites to GTO [wikipedia.org], while the satellite moves itself to GSO from there. Once there, that stage is out of fuel. You would need an equally powerful stage to get the satellite back to LEO.
Most of them are still up there: http://www.satobs.org/centaur.html [satobs.org]
Also, I think the real reason the graveyard orbit is higher is simply so that the dead satellites don't get in the way of the live ones. For the same reason they can't reach earth, they also can't reach escape velocity (~11.2km/s). But once in the graveyard orbit, they are not doing anyone any harm.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 22 2019, @11:00PM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:17PM (1 child)
It is always funny to hear someone say "WhY dOnT wE sHoOt GaRbAGe InTo ThE sUn?"
You don't even need to understand rockets to know why that is stupid. It cost us like, what, a trillion USD in current dollars to put a few tons on the moon. The sun is a LOT further away in delta/v. Its costs less to get to Pluto.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:13PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves