Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

[nordsieck]

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.

[perihelions]

- "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).

[accrual]

Indeed, Intelsat 33e has a couple nearby neighbors in similar orbits and inclinations.

    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

https://www.satsig.net/sslist.htm

[matrix2003]

Not to mention debris can be in GEO for a long, long time. People worry about LEO constellations causing Kessler syndrome, but the reality is that LEO debris deorbits in the order of months/years. GEO is much, much longer.

[exitb]

The most important contributor to a Kessler-like scenario is extremely high relative speed of items traveling on crossing orbits. It’s not very relevant to the situation in a single geostationary orbit shared by all the objects.

[Tepix]

Note that for every 1 km at the earths surface, you get 6.61 km at geostationary orbit. So there's quite a bit of room (264,924 km circumference vs 40,075km at ground level).

[idunnoman1222]

No, you cannot shift orbit with a single burn maneuver so whatever explosion unless it exploded the other way later cannot shift orbit if the pieces accelerated relative to earth they’re going into a higher orbit if they decelerated they go into a lower orbit Transverse thrust would cause a procession which should be very unlikely to hit another Geo stationary satellite in the future

[UltraSane]

It isn't great but the diameter of geostationary orbit is 84,328 kilometers so there is a lot of room.

[sharpshadow]

Another blunder for Boeing right up next to naming things „Epic Next Generation“…

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,...

[mynameisvlad]

> 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?

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.

[dtquad]

Boeing R&D and manufacturing is completely separated which is probably a significant source of problems for them. Often manufacturing is moved to locations that gives tax breaks and other benefits.

Meanwhile Airbus R&D engineers in Toulouse and Hamburg are often less than a 5 minute walk from where their designs are being manufactured.

[milgrim]

For some context:

The same Boeing satellite bus already experienced a major issue some years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19658800

[pmontra]

I was not familiar with the term satellite bus. I kind of guessed what it is but not really. Here's the link to the Wikipedia page. There might be a link to the Boeing bus in there.

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

[schiffern]

I know the Boeing connection is the most "sexy" cause, so people are probably going to run with it anyway, but I also have to wonder about a space debris collision. GEO is already quite polluted, and the "graveyard orbits" commonly used have been shown to be inadequate.[1]

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...

[api]

The complete collapse of Boeing needs to be studied.

[dylan604]

From TFA, this bird is the 2nd in this "next generation" of satellites. The first one also failed because either "a meteoroid impact or a wiring flaw that led to an electrostatic discharge following heightened solar weather activity."

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.

[thehappypm]

“Either a strike from a meteor, OR this highly specific wiring problem. Could be either! ” is actually pretty funny

[tverbeure]

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's something that can even be done by amateurs: it's 'just' a matter of keeping the exposure time long enough.

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.

[ThrowawayTestr]

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

[bewaretheirs]

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

[pdabbadabba]

For a satellite in a stable GEO orbit, I think there are basically two possibilities:

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.

[milgrim]

The satellite here was using the same Boeing bus: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/04/new-video-of-intelsa...

So something similar might have happened here.

[wongarsu]

It's anyways possible that it was struck by a meteorite or a piece of space debris that's too small to be tracked.

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

[doodlebugging]

We are at the beginning of the Orionid meteor shower so earth is now in the debris stream that creates that shower and has been for a couple days.

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.

[visviva]

The most likely options are that it was struck by debris or that there was an explosion onboard. Those two are not mutually exclusive, either.

[mattofak]

Could be struck by a micrometeorite, or if they were doing a station keeping maneuver something could have gone wrong with a thruster. (Apparently the first in it's class Intelsat-29e was lost due to a fuel leak, so maybe there is something systemically wrong in the spacecraft bus.)

[benlivengood]

I'm curious if a thruster malfunction could also cause it to spin to the point of breaking up.

[exe34]

rapid unscheduled disassembly.

[perihelions]

There's a lot of stored energy in satellites: fuel, gas pressurizers, batteries. End-of-life geosynchronous satellites sometimes drain all of these, deliberately, to limit their hazard as space junk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passivation_(spacecraft)

[worstspotgain]

An accidental strike is unlikely. Either a massive malfunction, or maybe ASAT [1]. ASAT is always going to be a possibility from now on simply because the target might prefer to deny getting hit.

[1] https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-03/news/us-warns-new-ru...

[stavros]

> “believe it is unlikely that the satellite will be recoverable.”

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".

[dylan604]

Is it only in 20 pieces, or did 20 pieces break off? Sudden unscheduled disassembly can happen differently. The probability is that there are 20 pieces they are able to track and many many more pieces that are smaller

[barryrandall]

Because it was posted on the internet, where new and exciting forms of pedantry are invented every day.

[rapjr9]

I was wondering if a geostationary satellite has ever broken up before. I found a NASA list of satellites that fragmented:

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.

[verzali]

AMC-9 and Telkom-1 both broke apart fairly recently too.

[someperson]

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't self clean (like GEO).

At least of the bigger debris.

[xvector]

Boeing should be forced to clean up the mess they made on their dime, or it's prison for the execs.

We are far too light on execs causing irreparable harm to humanity.

[deskr]

> ... satellite maker Boeing to address an anomaly that emerged earlier that day, but “believe it is unlikely that the satellite will be recoverable.”

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.

[wpm]

Well what sort of engineering standards are these satellites built to?

Boeing: Oh, very rigorous aerospace engineering standards.

What sort of thing?

Boeing: Well, the front’s not supposed to explode for a start.

[ck2]

Privatize the profit, socialize the cleanup costs.

Start making these companies pay into an insurance superfund.

Who is going to pay the day SpaceX has a "whoops" ?

[nordsieck]

> 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.

---

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

[whywhywhywhy]

What cleanup costs?

[eagerpace]

Pay for what?

[ranger_danger]

Sure are an awful lot of armchair experts in here.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

This place would be dreadfully quiet if only true experts were allowed to comment on anything.

I certainly enjoy reading some of these theories, even if the professionals in the hot seat disagree with their take.

[m463]

I think part of that is the consequence of lack information. just what happened, but no why or other context.

[someperson]

Definitely reply with concrete rebuttals than denigrate the knowledge of others

[bigiain]

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