Posted on 10/24/2024 9:42:06 AM PDT by Red Badger
Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Space Force and Roscosmos are tracking potential threatening debris from a Boeing-built satellite that exploded in orbit.
Intelsat said an anomaly triggered the explosion earlier this week and the cause is under investigation.
According to the British company Spaceflux, the fragments might still be a danger to other satellites.
"The problem is that there is a lot of uncertainty regarding the orbits of these fragments at the moment," said a Spaceflux spokesperson. "They can be potentially dangerous for other satellites but we do not know that yet."
The breakup of the satellite interrupted power and communications services across Europe, Asia and Africa.
Intelsat said in statement, "A Failure Review Board has been convened to complete a comprehensive analysis of the cause of the anomaly. Since the anomaly, Intelsat has been in active dialogue with affected customers and partners. Migration and service restoration plans are well underway across the Intelsat fleet and third-party satellites."
The Intelsat 33e is one of six "EpicNG" satellites made by Boeing. It was delayed for three months before entering service due to a primary thruster problem.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos said in a Tuesday statement it is tracking more than 80 fragments of the destroyed Intelsat satellite and they pose a potential threat to all operating spacecraft.
"Analysis of the trajectories of the fragments shows that the destruction of the satellite was instantaneous and high-energy," Roscosmos said in the statement. "Based on the obtained dynamics of the distribution of Intelsat-33e fragments, it can be concluded that there is a potential threat to all operating spacecraft, including the Roscosmos group in the geostationary region of outer space."
Boeing announced Wednesday that it had lost over $6 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2024, with CEO Robert Ortberg calling for a company culture reset and increased focus to turn the company around.
IAM union workers were voting Wednesday to decide whether or not to accept a new labor contract that would end a month-long strike at Boeing.
Boeing has had a series of mechanical failures and safety problems in jets and the Starliner spacecraft that took astronauts to the space station.
Despite the Starliner issues that stranded astronauts on the space station, development is likely to continue because NASA needs another alternative for spacecraft to prevent a SpaceX monopoly on spacecraft production.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/chinese-rockets-breakup-puts-over-1000-satellites-other-objects-risk-2024-08-09/
“Despite the Starliner issues that stranded astronauts on the space station, development is likely to continue because NASA needs another alternative for spacecraft to prevent a SpaceX monopoly on spacecraft production.”:
some alternative: exploding satellites and failing spacecraft, but hey, at least Musk won’t have a monopoly; well, perhaps a monopoly on stuff that works ...
I can’t wait to see the NY Slime’s explanation as to why this is Trump’s fault and another reason to vote for Harris.
TDS is running rampant at the moment in the MSM.
“Clean up, Orbit VI”
DEI policy not working out well for Boeing.
It’s working exactly as designed................
Obviously the explosion was caused by rocket fuel. Nothing else would blow it to bits.
This is actually a big deal. All this debris orbits the entire earth in 90 minutes to another satellite gets hit by one of the surely many small bits, it’s toast too and then there’s even more debris. Tracking it all is essential to avoid that sort of chain reaction scenario and it’s not an easy job.
A rocket from China broke up back in August
—
But not Geo?
I did and it still was not self destruct, DEI maybe a symptom, but not the cause of the explosion.
Even with the recent lower stock price, Boeing still has a market cap of almost $100 billion. I don’t see many companies that could afford that, not to mention the antitrust difficulties with the govt (should another defense contractor show interest).
It is and it isn’t. This satellite was in a GEO orbit (~35800 KM) and had a orbital period of just under 24 hours. A 90 minute orbit is associated with LEO satellites and could cause issues depending on its altitude and orbital plane. The Chinese and Russian ASAT tests left thousands of pieces of debris in a LEO orbit but have yet to been the cause of any collisions. The GEO belt is more forgiving when these types of explosions (usually associated with thruster fuel canisters) occur and active GEO satellites in the path of this debris will maneuver to avoid it. For LEO, the worst case scenario is called a Kessler Syndrome — here’s a link explaining it - Cheers!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
Fixed.
DEI strikes again!
Just like the U.S. DOD, knowingly hiring and keeping foreign spies is an outcome of the destructive DEI concepts...
They'd have to switch to landline or other system control access.
This satellite was at geo-sync, 22,000 miles up. Most/all debris won’t be orbiting the earth every 90 minutes but will be well disbursed up there somewhere. Loose objects do have a way of getting drwan into some sort of orbit due the forces of celestrial mechanics.
WILL BOEING GET BOUGHT FOR $1 by MUSK ???
Will he give back change?............
It was triggered by pronouns.
You truly have no sense of humor.
Typical.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.