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, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @05:21AM (1 child)
It's aliens, Lister, aliens
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @11:18AM
Moslems, my friend, Moslems all the way.
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Monday April 22 2019, @05:21AM (14 children)
With the sheer number of satellites up there already, and more planned, this is going to happen more and more. Geosync orbit is a bad place for it. We may need to begin considering development of a relatively inexpensive, fairly light vehicle which can intercept something like this and deorbit it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @07:07AM (13 children)
Use another old sat that is ready to de-orbit. Just pull along side and push it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday April 22 2019, @08:05AM (5 children)
If only it were that simple.
Orbital mechanics is unintuitive, and orbital changes just to intercept a specific orbit can use quite a bit of Delta V. Plus most that go out of service have either malfunctioned or ran out of fuel.
Not to mention you can't just snug up and push something at orbital speed.
Even a light craft capable of latching and de-orbiting a satellite, is likely to be one for one. One de-orbiter per sat. Anything large enough to put something on a de-orbital path and recover to do another is going to be massive. Perhaps with an orbiting fuel station that can be robotically refilled from time to time, but you will still need multiples in various common orbits to do it.
I suppose fleets of smaller suicide sats that latch and single burn retrograde could be launched, but they would have to be launched into similar orbits as they couldn't carry much fuel individually.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @08:39AM (4 children)
wouldn't it make sense to push geo-sync satelites a little outside of the orbit and the orbital plane and be done with it?
there's no real drag up there, just push them enough to spiral out of the Earth-Moon system.
if they're also outside the orbital plane, it's unlikely they'll hit anything else of significance.
I'm assuming here that the cost of getting to escape velocity from geo-sync orbit is reasonably small, but I don't see why that should be wrong.
on the other hand if you try to get them back to Earth to burn up in the atmosphere, there's a lot of stuff they can hit, and they'll have a lot of energy as well.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Monday April 22 2019, @01:36PM
Delta V. / total energy
There is no drag. Mass is still there 100%.
You have to subtract enough total energy that the satellite begins to drag in the atmosphere, or so that it exceeds escape velocity for the Earth. That's going to be higher to reach escape velocity.
Anything that's going to bring down a satellite has to first reach the same orbit as the satellite (using fuel), then it's got to slow it's own mass and the mass of the satellite. A heavy satellite is going to need lots of fuel to bring down. Then too, one that's been hit and isn't in control is going to be tumbling. You've got to catch it with something that's got a robust grappling system that won't break anything and spray more debris. That's going to be heavy too.
So anything that does that using current tech is going to be heavy, and single use. Or even heavier to add a refueling system.
For that to happen launch costs have to fall. SpaceX has made a start in that direction.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday April 22 2019, @01:39PM (2 children)
Yes, typically end of life GEO satelites are supposed to use their remaining fuel to burn up a few hunderd km, enough to clear both the GEO protected area (about 200km) and any perturbations for the forseeable.
This takes about 10m/s of delta V (compared with something like 1500m/s for de-orbiting from GEO)
If this satelite is crossing every other GEO orbit (pretty much) every year, any of them could be used if
1) There was a way to securely connect the two satelites
2) There was enough fuel to move twice the mass
2 is easy, just dispose of the functioning satelite a few months early (they use about 50m/s of fuel for normal station keeping, so assuming the same mass a 6 month early retirement would do the job). However satelites tend not to have tow ropes.
A dedicated GEO launch on an F9 (4 tons of payload) could likely launch a dedicated device to do so, collect the satellite and debris, and boost them into a graveyard orbit. We just don't have those dedicated devices (As a layman, I'd think something like a large cargo net, although I know some companies have been playing with harpoons - https://news.sky.com/story/space-harpoon-designed-in-uk-could-be-the-answer-to-space-debris-11291554 [sky.com] )
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday April 22 2019, @02:54PM
It might be easier to deorbit debris and old satellites with lasers, not to destroy, but to slowly change their orbits by exerting microscopic amounts of force. Might take decades to clean up Earth orbit, but if kept up, we would get there. Presumably that would be much, much cheaper than trash collection missions to geosynchronous orbit. With more powerful lasers, could vaporize the leading edges, so that the release of material propels the the debris as desired.
And, it might be more effective to place a laser deorbiting facility on the moon or in a higher than geosynchronous orbit. But would want to be very careful to guard against turning such a system into a weapon.
(Score: 2) by knarf on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:56AM
Nah, the solution is simple: build a SatVac and send it in the opposite direction through the geostationary orbit. A few rounds should be enough to suck up all those satellites. I doesn't need to be as big as Mega Maid [1], something along the size of a bulk carrier should be enough - just screw a big funnel on the front and you're done. Build it smart and it can feed off the ingested satellites to continue its mission in perpetuum. Now why does this remind me of an original series Star Trek episode [2]?
[1] https://spaceballs.fandom.com/wiki/Mega_Maid [fandom.com]
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday April 22 2019, @02:12PM (6 children)
You don't de-orbit things from geosync, it's 35786km away and nobody has the propellant budget to deorbit. This is why things get pushed into a graveyard orbit.
The other problem is that the "other old sat" would already need to be very close to this thing and have the additional hardware to grab it. Having them try to "nudge" another satellite basically means a collision which would create a complete disaster of debris. Trying to hit something softly requires even more propellent, which they just don't have.
NASA was worried about a 1 km/s collision. That would be a complete disaster at geosync. Space is big, I don't know if it would be a geosync version of Kessler syndrome, but it would probably take out more than one satellite.
A dedicated mission would be a problem too, the thing would basically need to be a giant fuel tank, and each time it does a close encounter it would run the risk of the same disaster.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(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
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @04:10PM
That's why we need the half section [wikipedia.org] to take care of it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday April 22 2019, @05:49AM (5 children)
What if Intelsat 29e knocks out satellites from other companies or countries? Under the Space Liability Convention [thespacereview.com] it seems like the US is liable for damages, because Intelsat is a US company. Would the US seek to recover damages from Intelsat?
(Score: 2, Informative) by RandomFactor on Monday April 22 2019, @12:59PM (3 children)
I did the math on that drift. The difference in that rate of drift and normal Geosynchronous orbit velocity was only a few meters per second (assuming same general direction.)
Not huge, but not small either. Enough that a good hit might damage or take out another satellite or at least mess up its positioning, but not enough I would expect significant debris from an impact.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Monday April 22 2019, @09:27PM (2 children)
Can you go ahead and do the math to determine the altitude difference between the Intelsat and GEO, based on the 1.2 degree per day drift? Here's the TLE for your reference. Thanks.
NORAD Two-Line Element Set Format [celestrak.com] for more reference.
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(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Monday April 22 2019, @10:30PM (1 child)
IS29e was described as "spiraling around" some of the other satellites in GEO so it is going to vary. Also I don't have an orbital mechanics toolset installed anyway.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Tuesday April 23 2019, @07:07AM
"Spiraling round" - Orbits don't spiral unless there is either thrust or drag.
I would guess that they meant it is circling other satellites, which would happen if it still had roughly the same period, but a more eliptical orbit, possibly inclined as well.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday April 22 2019, @02:24PM
Almost certainly, unless the government deems them "too big to fail". Of course, if the damage is for several satellites that need to be replaced Intelsat would simply declare bankrupcy, unless they were insured for this kind of thing.
This is why the Space Liability Convention was written the way it was. It doesn't let governments off the hook by saying "oops, that's a corporation in my borders, not my problem." How they handle it internally is the purview of their own legal system.
Now, to be fair, SLC was written in the 60's a time when you basically had to have the backing of a nation to launch something into orbit. Now that multi-national corporations have space launch capability things are even more complicated, but the theory stands.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh