- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
A satellite belonging to multinational service provider Intelsat mysteriously broke up in geostationary orbit over the weekend.
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I did read about this yesterday, and as far as I know the name of the sat is intelsat 33e and its for communication purposes. I’m curious to know what really happen, how it broke.
IS-33e was the second satellite to be launched as part of Boeing’s “next generation” EpicNG platform. The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak. Intelsat declared the satellite a total loss in April 2019, later attributing it to either a micrometeoroid strike or solar weather activity.
What caused IS-33e to break up in orbit remains unclear, however. Intesalt officials did observe that it was using far more fuel than it should be to maintain its orbit shortly after launching eight years ago, shaving off 3.5 years of its 15-year lifetime.
Boeing produces more leaks than this guy:
I was on a Boeing plane the other day that was delayed while we watched a guy with a wrench and a rag trying to stop fuel leaking out of the wing. It wasn’t hugely reassuring.
At least it was outside. Better out than in, I always say
Nowadays when I fly the fiirst criteria when I search for flights I check the airline’s fleet, then price.
Wouldn’t it be a bit more concerning if it exploded into smaller, yet complete satellites…? Exploding “into pieces” seems downright SOP to me.
That’s actually quite impressive because most satellites just don’t do anything when they die. Boeing’s vehicles die with flare, and depressing regularity
That’s only because they’re designed with passivation to vent tanks and disconnect batteries to remove sources of explosion when they start to die. If that fails the tanks eventually pop from thermal cycling or the solar panels overcharge the battery until it blows up like a Russian satellite did earlier this year.
“in space no one can hear you scream”
Boeing satellites: “AHHHHHH!!!”
Boeing: outsources to an outsourcer who outsources to an outsourcer who outsources to an outsourcer who outsources to an outsourcer and so on and still has the shamelessness of appearing surprised at the shit quality and reliability they deliver
Sounds like that case of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contracted killing in China that one time
Hitman walk into a bar
“ow”
Did it happen to have a beeper?
It was probably a whistleblower satellite.
That satellite was about to reveal company secrets
The secret is that Boeing is run by criminally careless assholes. Wait, that’s not a secret.
RIP
… 7 Members of Hezbollah Injured.
That brought a legit chuckle!
I’m honestly happy to see that it just had a fuel malfunction instead of the implication of an outside cause…
That was a previous satellite. This one appears to still be unknown if I’m not mistaken.
Makes me wonder if we have some Kessler Syndrome on our hands… 👀👀👀
Probably not. Anyway.
Yeah, blowing up satellites and cutting undersea internet cables would be (a short) prelude to world war III.
Nah it was both
I think it would take a lot longer than you expect with those shenanigans, but its still not good yeah.
aliens
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This is slightly concerning. Satellites don’t tend to explode on their own, but it is a Boeing design with a history of leaky propulsion, so who knows?
Sure it was a Comm satellite for the world’s tensest area, which is about to go to bigger war.
who would have ASAT capability at GEO?
how could it be launched to GEO undetected?
If you’re a government, you can pretty much put anything in a rocket fairing and call it a reconnaissance satellite.
The only warning that actually has to be given is that a rocket is being launched, so you don’t accidentally trigger WW3 by setting off launch detection satellites without warning. After it’s in space, no one can really tell what was in the fairing. Could be a spy satellite, could be navigation. Could just be a box with a bunch of little rockets in it, designed to slam into whatever you want at ridiculous speed.
But it’s way more likely that this was just Boeing having a tiny leak in a propellant tank, or a bad thruster and as soon as the concentration of propellant and oxidizer got high enough, it triggered a detonation. They certainly have a history of not leak testing their shit: airplanes falling apart, space capsules with leaky thrusters, and now a blown up satellite point more towards incompetence than malice.
China has anti geosync capability.
Is this a trick question? Cause you might as well be asking a 1600s peasant how to develop film.
You burn a witch and pray.
Instructions Unclear : gave my wife Chlamydia.
It was the window seal.
So in addition to the Boeing low hanging fruit - feels like the opener to a scifi story involving either covert space weapons testing or the start to some kind of extraterrestrial invasion. 😁
Man they are just on fire lately
firerapidly decompressingLol I believe it would be rapid uncontrolled oxidation
Not in space, though?
Dude your mom’s not in space
Boeing evil! Am I right! (laughter)
It was probably space garbage, and that’s seriously alarming.
You should look at some numbers before saying “probably”. It was much less probably space garbage than just Boeing. “Much less probably” here stands for “completely fucking irrelevant”.
