Large Boeing Satellite Suddenly Explodes Into Pieces
A satellite belonging to multinational service provider Intelsat mysteriously broke up in geostationary orbit over the weekend.
A satellite belonging to multinational service provider Intelsat mysteriously broke up in geostationary orbit over the weekend.
Surprised Pikachu face...
IS-33e was the second satellite to be launched as part of Boeing's "next generation" EpicNG platform. The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak.
I see a pattern.
Hmm, sounds like Boeing needs to fire more engineers.
And increase C-level compensation, of course.
I don't know this smells of some pencil Pusher looking at an engineer going "can you bring the cost of that rubber o-ring down 13 cents"... "I know you were looking for a specific type of seal but I got this huge assortment pack right here from my local temu...."
And do some more stock buybacks and raise dividends, of course.
Well, it is public knowledge that layoffs and furloughs are happening, so sadly, you're not wrong.
And they somehow enticed Kelly Ortberg out of retirement to take over as CEO. There's the hella juicy c-suite compensation package you talked about. He was already riding golden after he maneuvered that Rockwell Collins sale/merger/whatever.
Exactly why I wonder where our business school ethics go when it seems to me that value is only placed on what can be tied to everyone's income and profit being the 'sole' provider for it, and any Engineer's ethics being a nice thing for their own time. What would happen if we switch it up to Engineers being in charge who actually learn to make the product and the business side being the client of it rather than the other way around? Could the world be a better place? This doesn't mean every engineer or either group as a monolith is good or bad. Just that maybe in economics we can see who may value externalities even in capitalism as Adam Smith seemed to promote over just profit.
Their first mistake was building on the BeamNG platform.
Selective quoting is basically lying.
The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak. Intelsat declared the satellite a total loss in April 2019, later attributing it to either a micrometeoroid strike or solar weather activity.
With the context of the quote, I"m curious what the pattern you've identified is.
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
"in space no one can hear you scream"
Boeing satellites: "AHHHHHH!!!"
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.
What, was it blowing a whistle?
Did the front fall off?
I guess space is technically out of the environment.
They thought it did ... so they tried turning it off then on again ... and it exploded.
"Did it pass the smoke test?"
"Kinda... There's no smoke, anyway..."
That line was really funny. The first time we heard it. Many years ago.
Great, more bits of dangerous junk in orbit. The fuckers should have to clear up their mess before it fucks up other satellites.
This is actually a real problem more so in this case than most. There's an awful lot of satellites in low Earth orbit, altitude of a few hundred to several hundred kilometers. Atmospheric drag still exists here a little bit, and thus space junk will reenter and burn up in years or decades.
This satellite was in geostationary orbit, at an altitude of about 36,000 km. Debris up there can take hundreds of years to come down. Geostationary is a special altitude where the satellite orbits at exactly the same rate as the Earth spins. That means that a fixed dish on Earth will always point at the satellite without needing to move or track. So there's just one narrow orbital ring around the equator for that. That ring is not a place we want space junk to be, because if it gets too hazardous for satellites in GEO that basically removes our capability as a species to use fixed satellite dishes for anything. And that problem won't go away for centuries.
How did it break up? I wasn't aware that Boeing was determined to be a fault in the build process.
Circunstancial evidence points to Boeing being a failed company.
...was designed and manufactured by Boeing Space Systems and launched in 2016. It provided broadband services, including internet and phone communication services, to parts of Europe, Africa, and most of Asia.
IS-33e was the second satellite to be launched as part of Boeing's "next generation" EpicNG platform. The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak. Intelsat declared the satellite a total loss in April 2019, later attributing it to either a micrometeoroid strike or solar weather activity.
What caused IS-33e to break up in orbit remains unclear, however. Intesalt officials did observe that it was using far more fuel than it should be to maintain its orbit shortly after launching eight years ago, shaving off 3.5 years of its 15-year lifetime.
Could be a coincidence, but I feel "Boeing leaks" approaching "Samsung exploding" levels of memification (where they had washers, phones and some other things all exploding, and the look was not great).
Samsung shook the meme off, but I feel like Boeing will have a harder time.
Samsung makes consumer grade products that are “easily” replaced or fixed. Boeing makes shit for the US military, and they will 100% get what’s coming to them when a Boeing military project spontaneously combusts.
I do sort of feel that Samsung got a bit of a bad rep for their phones exploding because it wasn't really their fault. The company that made the batteries took shortcuts in the manufacturing process and that's what caused the fires. If they had followed the instructions Samsung had given them they would have been okay.
Although equally the company wouldn't have felt the need to take shortcuts if Samsung had made the batteries to a standard design.
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?
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?
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.
China has anti geosync capability.
Another Unsafe Product, Brought To You By Boeing!
Wow, Boeing keeps finding new and interesting ways to be incompetent. They seriously need their entire C-suite replaced with engineering types.
The saddest thing about that is they mostly are.
Business majors are the office grunts and middle managers of corporatism. Capital interests are more than aware that business degrees are basically adult daycares, and prefer engineering or law degrees for C-levels in industry.
I saw an interview with Jack Ma (I think) where he said his job isn’t to be the smartest at the job. His job is to find the smart people and make sure they work together. I think that may be what’s happening here. Leadership is incapable of holding the engineers accountable and making sure they follow all safety protocols. Whether that is incompetence or malice I’m sure we’ll never know for sure.
To be fair this satellite was built in 2016.
That's after the merger.
Sorry, I just bought several Boeing stocks at the time they didn't kill anyone yet, and now they have to do all that stuff to not let me out with a profit
IS-33e was the second satellite to be launched as part of Boeing's "next generation" EpicNG platform. The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak. Intelsat declared the satellite a total loss in April 2019, later attributing it to either a micrometeoroid strike or solar weather activity.
What caused IS-33e to break up in orbit remains unclear, however. Intesalt officials did observe that it was using far more fuel than it should be to maintain its orbit shortly after launching eight years ago, shaving off 3.5 years of its 15-year lifetime.
Boeing produces more leaks than this guy:
I was on a Boeing plane the other day that was delayed while we watched a guy with a wrench and a rag trying to stop fuel leaking out of the wing. It wasn't hugely reassuring.
At least it was outside. Better out than in, I always say
Nowadays when I fly the fiirst criteria when I search for flights I check the airline's fleet, then price.
... 7 Members of Hezbollah Injured.
That brought a legit chuckle!
That's gonna leave a mess.
Fortunately, Boeing is a responsible entity and will plan on cleaning it up... right?
I hope not "Gravity" movie levels of mess..
Geostationary orbit is waaaaay high.
🎶 It's not the best choice it's Spacers Choice!🎶
Was it a Satellite Max?
Satellite: "But I wasn't boing anything wrong!"
I'm honestly happy to see that it just had a fuel malfunction instead of the implication of an outside cause...
That was a previous satellite. This one appears to still be unknown if I'm not mistaken.
Makes me wonder if we have some Kessler Syndrome on our hands... 👀👀👀
Probably not. Anyway.
Yeah, blowing up satellites and cutting undersea internet cables would be (a short) prelude to world war III.
aliens
I think it would take a lot longer than you expect with those shenanigans, but its still not good yeah.
Nah it was both
So in addition to the Boeing low hanging fruit - feels like the opener to a scifi story involving either covert space weapons testing or the start to some kind of extraterrestrial invasion. 😁
did you know that high powered lasers are invisible to the naked eye without a sufficient particulate medium to pass through?
Good thing I'm wearing clothes.
Jack Welch is up there with the guy who invented leaded gasoline and the chemicals that put holes in the ozone.
The door plug again?
J E W I S H. S P A C E. L A S E R S!
The YHVH cosmic canons
That's not good. —Subtitle
It was the window seal.
The satellite went boing boing?
No, not double boing. It went triple boing.
Did it happen to have a beeper?
You can't make this shit up lmao.
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.
puts on conspiracy hat
Did musk hit it with something?
Probably because it's very important that he is involved in every discussion, even if it doesn't initially involve him.
Nah, it obviously wanted to whistlelbow about Boeing.
Doubtful. Dude ain't got no ups.
Musk probably hit it with his signature offensive odor
It was probably an emergency exit hatch for the magic rocket gas.
Boeing evil! Am I right! (laughter)
It was probably space garbage, and that's seriously alarming.