A satellite belonging to multinational service provider Intelsat mysteriously broke up in geostationary orbit over the weekend.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    56
    ·
    edit-2
    4 hours ago

    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

  • lunar17@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    7 hours ago

    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?

    • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      6 hours ago

      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?

      • Zron@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        3 hours ago

        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.

  • Zip2@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    7 hours ago

    Rapid unscheduled disassembly.

    Plus “Into pieces” is rather unnecessary there.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    39 minutes ago

    did you know that high powered lasers are invisible to the naked eye without a sufficient particulate medium to pass through?

  • clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    9 hours ago

    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

  • Rose56@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    5 hours ago

    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.