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Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

(spacenews.com)
157 points milgrim | 4 comments | 21 Oct 24 14:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.791s | source
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nordsieck ◴[21 Oct 24 14:28 UTC] No.41904557[source]▶
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.
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perihelions ◴[21 Oct 24 14:41 UTC] No.41904693[source]▶
- "Satellites are packed as tightly as possible into that orbit due to its economic importance"

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).

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naikrovek ◴[21 Oct 24 15:09 UTC] No.41905025[source]▶
> They're physically hundreds of kilometers apart.

That’s pretty close when your neighbor just exploded and there’s almost exactly zero air resistance to prevent debris from reaching you.

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1. Tepix ◴[21 Oct 24 15:29 UTC] No.41905234[source]▶
Getting hit by debris that flies away directly from an explosion would very bad luck indeed. Just think about how well you would have to aim to hit someone 10km away.

But some debris (in particular slower pieces) will probably oscillate around the geostationary orbit giving it countless chances of hitting other satellites.

Has someone modelled this for example in Kerbal space program?

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2. lupusreal ◴[21 Oct 24 16:09 UTC] No.41905615[source]▶
> But some debris (in particular slower pieces) will probably oscillate around the geostationary orbit giving it countless chances of hitting other satellites.

Almost all of the debris will have orbits which intersect their orbit of origin.

3. blkhawk ◴[21 Oct 24 16:11 UTC] No.41905633[source]▶
well while that is true only debris that has the right speed will stay there. the issue is that debris will probably have gotten some impulse that turns it orbit elliptical. that means it will slowly ratchet along geo touching it every day or so at a different place. so you get a changes every day for every piece to hit something. And even a big piece that might just have a delta of 30km/h might damage your panels on your working Sats.
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4. naikrovek ◴[21 Oct 24 17:45 UTC] No.41906469[source]▶
Yes, exactly.

It almost certainly won’t hit you directly, but that stuff is in orbit with you now, and it is uncontrolled.