this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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A satellite belonging to multinational service provider Intelsat mysteriously broke up in geostationary orbit over the weekend.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

... 7 members of Hezbollah injured.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

That brought a legit chuckle!

[–] [email protected] 75 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 54 minutes ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 hours ago

"in space no one can hear you scream"

Boeing satellites: "AHHHHHH!!!"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

It was probably an emergency exit hatch for the magic rocket gas.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Great, more bits of dangerous junk in orbit. The fuckers should have to clear up their mess before it fucks up other satellites.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 30 minutes ago (1 children)

How did it break up? I wasn't aware that Boeing was determined to be a fault in the build process.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 24 minutes ago

Yeah fair point. Boeing has a degraded reputation these days but at the mo we don't know why it broke up. Probably never will. I'm kinda going on Occam's razor here.

[–] [email protected] 87 points 8 hours ago

What, was it blowing a whistle?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Is this a trick question? Cause you might as well be asking a 1600s peasant how to develop film.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

You burn a witch and pray.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 hours ago

Instructions Unclear : gave my wife Chlamydia.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 hours ago

Satellite: "But I wasn't boing anything wrong!"

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 hours ago

Good thing I'm wearing clothes.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Rapid unscheduled disassembly.

Plus “Into pieces” is rather unnecessary there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

You can explode without turning into pieces, though

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Arguable. I’d say it’s the same but the size of the pieces varies.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Where do pieces end and particles begin?

philosoraptor.jpg

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 minutes ago

The actual answer is at vaporization temperature. Which the satellite did not reach.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 hours ago

Was it a Satellite Max?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

Sounds like that case of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contracted killing in China that one time

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not really into the stock market, but I would not buy Boeing at the moment.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Now would be the best time to do it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 34 minutes ago

Unless it's a dead cat moment :)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Assuming it bounces back up

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago

Their vehicles don't, so i wouldn't hold my breath

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago

If it doesn't do it on its own, one of 2 things will happen:

  1. They get bought out, which almost always results in a bump.
  2. The government bails them out, which is an even bigger bump.
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

Man they are just on fire lately

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