Note that that's in the sense of angular separation, as viewed from the ground. They're physically hundreds of kilometers apart.
edit: (Geostationary orbits are ~42,000 km from the Earth center-of-mass; each degree of angle is an arc of ~700 km).
That’s pretty close when your neighbor just exploded and there’s almost exactly zero air resistance to prevent debris from reaching you.
ID Name Orbit Incl.
98050A ASTRA 2A 57.2 4.93
09017A WGS F2 (USA 204) 57.5 0.01
14023B KAZSAT-3 58.5 0.02
12008A BEIDOU-2 G5 58.7 2.10
16053B INTELSAT 33E (IS-33E) 60.0 0.04 <-- 20+ debris components
19014A WGS 10 (USA 291) 60.3 0.01
04007A ABS-4 (MOBISAT-1) 61.0 3.86
10008A EWS-G2 (GOES 15) 61.5 0.04
19049B INTELSAT 39 (IS-39) 62.0 0.02
From Wikipedia, it looks like it's a USSF satellite launched in 2019 with a service life of 14 years. It provides wideband communications to DoD customers.
On human timescales, it's basically forever. Hopefully we'll develop the tech to clean up debris in space, but it's extra challenging to do it in geostationary orbit since it's so far away from Earth, both in terms of actual distance, and delta-V.
> People worry about LEO constellations causing Kessler syndrome, but the reality is that LEO debris deorbits in the order of months/years.
It's a little more complicated than that. The time to spontaneously deorbit is based on orbital height. Starlink can deorbit on its own in 5-10 years because it's orbiting so low. But any OneWeb satellites that malfunction[1] will take 1000+ years to deorbit because they're up at 1000+ km.
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1. Like this one
https://spacenews.com/oneweb-mulls-debris-removal-service-fo...
if it remains in GEO orbit (same speed vector), it will remain in same "place" relative to other satellites, and won't ever hit them
if it changes speed vector, it's no longer in GEO orbit
What’s with the missing insurance? Didn’t they get any insurance because of the previous debacle with a Intelsat where they couldn’t decide if it was a internal or external source? Who would pay now if debris causes damage?
Interesting to see the Space Force now mentioned and following the Wikipedia list[1] the standard procedure seem to be to create a new agency every couple of decades which takes over the previous one but with a new name. What are the reasons for this?
Edit: [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_forces,_units,...
Is it a "standard operating procedure" if there are only two examples of it happening (and independent space forces in general)?
In any case, even for those that still aren't fully independent, it seems to be slowly separating air and space forces as space became a bigger player in the global arms race.
Meanwhile Airbus R&D engineers in Toulouse and Hamburg are often less than a 5 minute walk from where their designs are being manufactured.
The same Boeing satellite bus already experienced a major issue some years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19658800
Can anyone tell whether (at 60 degrees East and at 4:30 UTC October 19) the satellite was passing through the intersection with the main plane of lunar perturbed debris? This would hint at a possible debris strike.
Sadly I can't seem to find a 3D satellite visualization that lets you go back in time. :-(
[1] https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2008/03/Spacecraft...
That's a pretty specific flaw to then just write it off to a meteor.
So they are 0 for 2. Does not instill confidence in this "next generation" at all.
Here's an article about that: https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/how-to-see-and-photogr...
There are commercial services that keep visual track of geostationary satellites. A couple of years ago, IIRC, a Russian satellite broke down and there were pictures of the disintegration.
It's had a few propulsion system issues:
> On 9 September 2016, Intelsat announced that due to a malfunction in the LEROS-1c primary thruster, it would require more time for orbit rising ...
> In August 2017, another propulsion issue appeared, leading to larger-than-expected propellant usage to control the satellite attitude during the north/south station keeping maneuvers. This issue reduced the orbital life-time by about 3.5 years.
1. Collision with other debris
2. Internal fault causing uncontrolled release of stored energy (i.e., explosion)
Intelsat-29e used the same satellite bus and experienced #2, in the form of some sort of uncontrolled propellant release.
So something similar might have happened here.
But these satellites also carry fuel for orbit keeping, evasion manoeuvres and going to a graveyard orbit at its end of life. Given that this satellite had two separate propulsion issues and Intelsat-29e suffered from electrostatic discharge it's not difficult to imagine the satellite igniting its fuel in an uncontrolled manner
This could be a Boeing problem but it also could be due to an impact with a micrometeorite or other natural-origin space debris.
Enjoy the meteor shower if you have a chance.
[1] https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-03/news/us-warns-new-ru...
Why do these announcements have to be so hedgy? The satellite is in twenty pieces, I'd think that with the probability of spontaneous reconstruction being so low, we're fairly safe to say "will not be recoverable".
History of On-orbit Satellite Fragmentations, 16th Edition
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20220019160/downloads/HO...
Searching that PDF for "geostationary" I found:
"The Russian government’s disclosure of the Ekran 2 battery explosion on 25 June 1978 is the first known fragmentation in geostationary orbit."
There are two other geostationary fragmentations in the list, Ekran 4 and Ekran 9. These two events are hypothesized to have also been due to battery explosions.
At least of the bigger debris.
We are far too light on execs causing irreparable harm to humanity.
The parent comment explained some reasonable contractual mechanisms for civil remedy - insurance etc.
Yeah, the satellite disintegrates and they call it an "anomaly" and "unlikely that the satellite will be recoverable". This response is even funnier than "the front fell off" sketch.
I feel like it's time to class Boeing as not only inept but a dangerously inept organisation.
Start making these companies pay into an insurance superfund.
Who is going to pay the day SpaceX has a "whoops" ?
Ironically, SpaceX is probably one of the least bad companies in that regard.
1. They launch satellites to a very low LEO orbit. The satellites use their onboard thrusters to get to their final orbits. This means that satellites that malfunction early in their life (the first lip of the bathtub[1]) deorbit in a matter of months. And they're so low, they don't affect anyone else.
2. And even Starlink satellites that do fail are at such a low orbital height that they'll spontaneously deorbit in 5-10 years.
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I certainly enjoy reading some of these theories, even if the professionals in the hot seat disagree with their take.