Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

It is particularly bad for a satellite in geostationary orbit to break up or fail. Satellites are packed as tightly as possible into that orbit due to its economic importance (it's very useful for a satellite, particularly communications satellites, to always be over the same part of the Earth), so there is a higher than normal likelihood that this could be seriously disruptive.

Another blunder for Boeing right up next to naming things „Epic Next Generation“…<p>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?<p>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?<p>Edit: [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_space_forces,_units,_and_formations#Independent_space_forces" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_space_forces,_units,...</a>

For some context:<p>The same Boeing satellite bus already experienced a major issue some years ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19658800">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19658800</a>

From TFA, this bird is the 2nd in this &quot;next generation&quot; of satellites. The first one also failed because either &quot;a meteoroid impact or a wiring flaw that led to an electrostatic discharge following heightened solar weather activity.&quot;<p>That&#x27;s a pretty specific flaw to then just write it off to a meteor.<p>So they are 0 for 2. Does not instill confidence in this &quot;next generation&quot; at all.

The linked article shows a picture of the debris. Just amazing that we can do this for tiny objects that 35,000 km away from us, but apparently it&#x27;s something that can even be done by amateurs: it&#x27;s &#x27;just&#x27; a matter of keeping the exposure time long enough.<p>Here&#x27;s an article about that: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;skyandtelescope.org&#x2F;observing&#x2F;how-to-see-and-photograph-geosynchronous-satellites" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;skyandtelescope.org&#x2F;observing&#x2F;how-to-see-and-photogr...</a><p>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.

How does a satellite break up in orbit? Was it struck by something?

&gt; “believe it is unlikely that the satellite will be recoverable.”<p>Why do these announcements have to be so hedgy? The satellite is in twenty pieces, I&#x27;d think that with the probability of spontaneous reconstruction being so low, we&#x27;re fairly safe to say &quot;will not be recoverable&quot;.

I was wondering if a geostationary satellite has ever broken up before. I found a NASA list of satellites that fragmented:<p>History of On-orbit Satellite Fragmentations, 16th Edition<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ntrs.nasa.gov&#x2F;api&#x2F;citations&#x2F;20220019160&#x2F;downloads&#x2F;HOOSF_16e_all_for_STRIVES.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ntrs.nasa.gov&#x2F;api&#x2F;citations&#x2F;20220019160&#x2F;downloads&#x2F;HO...</a><p>Searching that PDF for &quot;geostationary&quot; I found:<p>&quot;The Russian government’s disclosure of the Ekran 2 battery explosion on 25 June 1978 is the first known fragmentation in geostationary orbit.&quot;<p>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.

With falling cost of launch, there seems an opportunity to have a program to clean up orbital debris, funded by insurance premiums for orbits that don&#x27;t self clean (like GEO).<p>At least of the bigger debris.

&gt; ... satellite maker Boeing to address an anomaly that emerged earlier that day, but “believe it is unlikely that the satellite will be recoverable.”<p>Yeah, the satellite disintegrates and they call it an &quot;anomaly&quot; and &quot;unlikely that the satellite will be recoverable&quot;. This response is even funnier than &quot;the front fell off&quot; sketch.<p>I feel like it&#x27;s time to class Boeing as not only inept but a dangerously inept organisation.

Privatize the profit, socialize the cleanup costs.<p>Start making these companies pay into an insurance superfund.<p>Who is going to pay the day SpaceX has a &quot;whoops&quot; ?

Sure are an awful lot of armchair experts in here.

I assume this is the new Boeing Intelsat MAX-8?