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Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

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Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should teach it in every MBA program in the country /s.

If you gave a company over to only engineers, it would also fail, just in a different way. Same with only HR, or any other field. MBAs are not the problem. Shitty MBAs and shitty leadership are the problem. MBAs aren't there to screw people over; they're there to sustainably run a company. Sure, the bad ones screw people over in the name of nickel-and-diming. But still. And no, I'm not an MBA . . .

> 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)?

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- "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).

> 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.

That doesn't seem very close in terms of the area traced out by each object in relation to the area of the sphere? (And less if you consider volume since they won't be at exactly the same altitude.)

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#53

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

Without having details of the explosion, I imagine some parts will slow down and some will speed up. They'll all be clustered together around the original orbit, and will take many years to drift any considerable distance unless it was a very high velocity explosion.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#54

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.

So does that mean the other satellites "behind" it are in more danger?

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#56
post #7

> ... 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 organi…

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.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should teach it in every MBA program in the country /s.

If you gave a company over to only engineers, it would also fail, just in a different way. Same with only HR, or any other field. MBAs are not the problem. Shitty MBAs and shitty leadership are the problem. MBAs aren't there to screw people over; they're there to sustainably run a company. Sure, the bad ones screw people over in the name of nickel-and-diming. But still. And no, I'm not an MBA . . .

No doubt about it, the widespread problem is having non-leaders in leadership positions.

The underlying defect is a system which allows absolutely poor performers to advance based on an overwhelming focus on greed and ambition for power.

When it has become more popularly acceptable to allow it to become so.

The most unsuitable candidates for leading people are what the mainstream finds acceptable or even desirable once the culture shift swings this far.

With either a reduced number of key positions that can afford to be occupied by a dud (or worse), or an increased number of limited-ability competitors prevailing on the basis of their dedication to leveraging greed and even treachery, the kind of leader that's really needed is less likely to advance from entry-level at all.

What would really help would be a culture that inhibits those unsuitable individuals from arising toward those limited number of key positions to begin with.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[flagged]

If you want to dismiss an argument, maybe do the math instead of saying "do the math" dismissively and inventing an arbitrary number without even saying across how much time that estimate is supposed to be (one in a billion, what, instantaneously? In the first hour?)

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#60

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.

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, it'd rather be a danger to those immediately behind (with each orbit, progressively further back along the circular orbital path)

Disclaimer: this comes from playing a self-made orbital mechanics game, I have no training whatsoever let alone professional experience with this

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