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Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

(spacenews.com)
157 points milgrim | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 14:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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ThrowawayTestr ◴[21 Oct 24 14:38 UTC] No.41904665[source]▶
How does a satellite break up in orbit? Was it struck by something?
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1. bewaretheirs ◴[21 Oct 24 14:55 UTC] No.41904869[source]▶
It's more likely that something energetic happened with an onboard system (propulsion or batteries). Could just be leaky valves causing propellant and oxidizer to meet somewhere they shouldn't..

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_33e