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Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

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Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#111
post #71
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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…

Yes, exactly.

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

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#112
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 0.3 degrees ahead in orbit. Which means the debris needs to speed up to collide. It's possible if the break-up was explosive, but most, if not all of the debris is more likely to stay at the same velocity or slow down.

Speeding up does not work, that'll just put it in a higher orbit. My understanding of these issues is that introduced eccentricity gets you: if it takes the "inside corner" (is that the English word for binnenbocht/innenkurve?) around the earth, it could then then meet you on the other side where the orbits intersect. If it sped up (flying out of the corner, in this race analogy) and thereby took a longer way around,…

> this comes from playing a self-made orbital mechanics game

My interest is piqued!

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#113

Sure are an awful lot of armchair experts in here.

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.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like WGS-10 is the closest. From Wikipedia, it looks like it's a USSF satellite launched in 2019 with a service life of 14 years. It provides wideband communications to DoD customers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-291

It's 0.3 degrees ahead in orbit. Which means the debris needs to speed up to collide. It's possible if the break-up was explosive, but most, if not all of the debris is more likely to stay at the same velocity or slow down.

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Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#116
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you gave a company over to only engineers, it would also fail, just in a different way Do you have an idea of what would be the failure mode(s)?

If engineers run the restaurant the food is excellent but the menu is confusing and there are no customers because nobody knows the restaurant exists. If sales/marketing runs the restaurant it's full but there is no food. The menu is beautiful and shows all kinds of dishes nobody knows how to make. If MBAs run the restaurant it's full of people paid to be there long enough to be counted and reported up to the investo…

I think this makes a pretty good stereotype based on reality.

This is something of a dichotomy between engineering-based structures and sales-centric, with MBA's and designers as collateral players.

Everybody needs sales of some kind, but most businesses do not actually need "engineering", so there are not usually any engineers expected to in the chain-of-command. Even in an engineering company itself there may be only token members in the most critical decision-making positions.

A sales hierarchy sells from a select source of technology.

An engineering hierarchy selects a technology to be a source of.

They each have huge pallettes to choose from, but they are different.

I think many lifelong business operators are aware that it really takes far more years to truly learn their business than it would to enroll as a freshman and end up earning an MBA.

And that's not even engineering companies.

These are the kind of organizations that may have no worthwhile use for even the most talented decision-maker of any kind regardless of degree, until after their employment has been lengthy enough to have achieved the working acumen that is really necessary. In many cases taking far more years on active duty than in academic preparation, but it's worth it.

But even if you can do without MBA's forever, you still have to have Production, Sales, accountants, HR, Admin, security, IT, etc. You can only go so far with "engineers" only.

However, in one way to approach an ideal "engineering company" the entire chain-of-command consists of true technical leaders-by-consensus top-to-bottom in a Maslow-like way where by nature less consensus is needed toward the top where the individual vision finally becomes most powerful.

All the other departments report to this engineering backbone in one way or another so the buck always stops with somebody who can handle the engineering calculus and who always puts that kind of thing foremost from day one, without undue reliance on business calculus, which are two different pursuits to an extent.

Then if a gifted MBA or two have something to offer, they can do so while reporting to the appropriate engineers, never the other way around.

You need to get back to a more technically talented chain-of-command where they instinctively can make way more money through technology than any bean-counters would ever be able to save even if they laid everyone off.

No doubt you can accomplish a lot by having a completely non-technical chain-of-command, with engineering off to the side like other essentials such as accounting or HR. People do it all the time. But you can't really accomplish quite the same things after all.

Still it sounds like any customers who stumbled in to the "Engineering Restaurant" end up with the best as far as the food itself, although there is some "Artisan Dining" where the experience can be unforgettable too.

Sometimes you don't get much on your plate though, I wondered if they were in the back eating most of it themselves ;)

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 0.3 degrees ahead in orbit. Which means the debris needs to speed up to collide. It's possible if the break-up was explosive, but most, if not all of the debris is more likely to stay at the same velocity or slow down.

How does one tell the dynamics of orbital objects/debris relative to forces acting on them? Is there a name for this type of field?

Ballistics.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Know when to say when. People warned about exactly what happened already back in the time when the merger happened that introduced beancounter culture to Boeing. The problem was, as always, no one listens to the warners and the whiners when there is money to be made.

The only counter to the money argument is tough regulation that results in jail time. If the whiners can point to an example of white collar criminal enforcement their complaints suddenly have teeth.

> The only counter to the money argument is tough regulation that results in jail time

Okay, so it's functionally impossible with the current and likely next incoming US administration.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#120

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.

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

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