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Zombie Satellite Causes Astronomical Buzz
Yahoo ^
| 5-11-10
| Claudine Zap
Posted on 05/11/2010 4:34:59 AM PDT by Vaquero
Don't be alarmed. High above your heads, a zombie satellite is on the loose. OK, actually, it won't really be a bother to us earthlings. Or at least to most of us. (More on that later.) But the rogue communications satellite is wreaking havoc in Earth's orbit and does threaten to interfere with signals coming from other satellites. Here's the backstory...
(Excerpt) Read more at buzz.yahoo.com ...
TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: junk; satellites; space; zombies
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Zombie Satellites???
Oooooooooo.....SCARY!!!!
1
posted on
05/11/2010 4:34:59 AM PDT
by
Vaquero
To: KevinDavis
2
posted on
05/11/2010 4:35:51 AM PDT
by
Vaquero
(BHO....'The Pretenda from Kenya')
To: Vaquero
3
posted on
05/11/2010 4:39:51 AM PDT
by
Vaquero
(BHO....'The Pretenda from Kenya')
To: Vaquero
Image of rogue satellite captured by Hubble telescope:
4
posted on
05/11/2010 4:43:23 AM PDT
by
Jonah Hex
("Never underestimate the hungover side of the Force.")
To: Vaquero
OK. Somebody explain how a communication satellite ‘wanders’ from its assigned orbital position? Isn’t Isaac Newton in the driver’s seat? These things are in geostationary orbit, so it’s not like atmospheric drag could be the culprit. Did it somehow fire a steering thruster when it ‘died’?
And if this was a solar flare that killed the sat, why didn’t the communications payload get ‘fried’ in the process? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
5
posted on
05/11/2010 4:45:27 AM PDT
by
Tallguy
("The sh- t's chess, it ain't checkers!" -- Alonzo (Denzel Washington) in "Training Day")
To: Tallguy
OK. Somebody explain how a communication satellite wanders from its assigned orbital position? Isnt Isaac Newton in the drivers seat? These things are in geostationary orbit, so its not like atmospheric drag could be the culprit. Did it somehow fire a steering thruster when it died?That's one possibility. It could have been hit by space debris that threw it off.
6
posted on
05/11/2010 4:48:18 AM PDT
by
raybbr
(Someone who invades another country is NOT an immigrant - illegal or otherwise.)
To: Vaquero
Someone will have too call the space tow truck to haul this clunker to the junkyard.
Hey, it sounds like an idea for a Sci-Fi story.
7
posted on
05/11/2010 4:49:54 AM PDT
by
csvset
To: Tallguy
Actually...
But instead of just dying and drifting off, the satellite has continued to orbit the Earth, even though it refuses to receive instructions from its owner, Intelsat.
Apparently the real problem is that it's still in its orbit and "stealing" sat communications.
8
posted on
05/11/2010 4:50:40 AM PDT
by
raybbr
(Someone who invades another country is NOT an immigrant - illegal or otherwise.)
To: Tallguy
Possibly a thruster mis-fire. Also possibly a micro-meteor hit. If it it kicked in a bit of retrograde velocity, then you'd get an orbit with an apogee at GEO and a perigee approaching LEO.
Don't know the facts, just hazarding a guess...
9
posted on
05/11/2010 4:51:27 AM PDT
by
Jonah Hex
("Never underestimate the hungover side of the Force.")
To: Tallguy
When you burn your finger, does your foot still work?
10
posted on
05/11/2010 4:57:04 AM PDT
by
G Larry
(DNC is comprised of REGRESSIVES!)
To: Vaquero
>"a zombie satellite is on the loose."
So what? We've had one in the White House for years.
11
posted on
05/11/2010 5:10:06 AM PDT
by
scoobysnak71
(Never argue with stupid people. They drag you down to their level and win through experience.)
To: Jonah Hex
ROFL! Thats some modified death star.
Does it home in on FOX news?
To: Tallguy
From some article on the Internet:
The main source of perturbation for a satellite in GSO is the combined gravitational attractions of the Sun and Moon, which causes the orbital inclination to increase by nearly one degree per year. This is countered by a north-south station-keeping maneuver about once every two weeks so as to keep the satellite within 0.05° of the equatorial plane. The average annual velocity change (delta v) needed is about 50 m/s, which represents 95% of the total station-keeping propellant budget. Additionally, the bulge of the Earth causes a longitudinal drift, which is compensated by east-west station-keeping maneuvers about once a week, with an annual delta v of less than 2 m/s, to keep the satellite within 0.05° of its assigned longitude. Finally, solar radiation pressure caused by the transfer of momentum from the Sun's light and infrared radiation both flattens the orbit and disturbs the orientation of the satellite. The orbit is compensated by an eccentricity control maneuver that can sometimes be combined with east-west stationkeeping, whereas satellite's orientation is maintained by momentum wheels supplemented by magnetic torquers and thrusters. Ion propulsion systems, notably XIPS, are being used increasingly for station-keeping.
13
posted on
05/11/2010 5:21:08 AM PDT
by
Moonman62
(The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
To: Vaquero
I thought everyone knew that any satellites that accidentally go out of their announced orbits are, in actual fact, secret CIA/KGB/MI5 spy cameras scoping out ChiComs/CapitalistOppressors/WorldCupFootie.
Or have I been reading too much Tom Clancy?
14
posted on
05/11/2010 5:22:35 AM PDT
by
Eepsy
(www.pioacademy.org)
To: Eepsy
Or have I been reading too much Tom Clancy? Dale Brown. ;-)
15
posted on
05/11/2010 5:39:10 AM PDT
by
Jonah Hex
("Never underestimate the hungover side of the Force.")
To: Tallguy; raybbr
OK. Somebody explain how a communication satellite wanders from its assigned orbital position? Isnt Isaac Newton in the drivers seat?
Suggest you research solar wind, oblate spheroid shape of the earth, n-body problem, micro-meteors, for starters on your question about Isaac Newton.
Did it somehow fire a steering thruster when it died?
Possible... Additionally, the article uses the term "fried" referring to the controlling hardware/software of the satellite ground control order reception/execution system. This scientific term could have referred to anything from a simple break in a single circuit to a completely melted chip. The point is that depending upon the circuit's physical placement, shielding, circuit redundancy, program fault tolerance, etc., it vulnerability to an external disruption (either physical material like a micro-meteor or radiation from a solar flare, etc.) could be greater than the communication circuitry. Additionally, the programming in the control program would probably have been much more complex in the execution loops and thus more vulnerable to information/coding loss. Such a loss could have been responsible for an errant command to fire a thruster, loss of command signal processing or execution, etc.
To: KevinDavis
17
posted on
05/11/2010 6:00:20 AM PDT
by
GeronL
(http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
To: Vaquero
I’m reminded of the opening scene in “Wall-E” where the camera zooms down toward Earth thru a cloud of dead communication satellites still in orbit.
18
posted on
05/11/2010 6:01:19 AM PDT
by
6SJ7
(atlasShruggedInd = TRUE)
To: Jonah Hex; Vaquero
Stay away from that Obama Death Star!
To: Vaquero; Slings and Arrows; JoeProBono
20
posted on
05/11/2010 6:44:17 AM PDT
by
a fool in paradise
(The hysteria of Matthewsism and Andersonism has led to a Tea Party Scare that is unAmerican.)
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