Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit • Hacker News Board

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#91

Post by mynameisvlad » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

sharpshadow wrote: post #70

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 t…

> 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.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#92

Post by UltraSane » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

nordsieck wrote: post #4

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.

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

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#93

Post by stavros » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

> “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".

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#94

Post by dtquad » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 5:01 PM UTC

sharpshadow wrote: post #70

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 t…

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.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#95

Post by ahoka » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 5:10 PM UTC

kjs3 wrote: post #61

dylan604 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You joke, but it absolutely should. Boeing is a great example of "when all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail". When MBAs are left in charge with no guardrails, this is what can happen. That's a great thing to teach to new MBAs. Every field has this potential pitfall. When you hyperfocus, bad things can happen. Know when to say when.

If you get your MBA at Emory University, you learn about the New Coke fiasco. In a building named after Roberto C. Goizueta. The Coke executive responsible for New Coke. I suspect the irony is often lost on the latest cadre of MBA grads.

They had actually better sales after the whole thing.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#96

Post by hooverd » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 5:12 PM UTC

dtquad wrote: post #94

sharpshadow wrote: post #70

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 t…

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.

What do you mean CAD isn't exactly the same as real life?

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#97

Post by dialup_sounds » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 5:17 PM UTC

hooverd wrote: post #96

dtquad wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you mean CAD isn't exactly the same as real life?

Wait you mean the map is not the territory?

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#98

Post by ckozlowski » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

mynameisvlad wrote: post #91

sharpshadow wrote: post #70

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 t…

> 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 stil…

You're largely correct. Space has become a more important domain which is growing all of the time. There had been a complaint within the USAF hierarchy and in the government as a whole that the USAF had neglected the space mission. It's leadership was overwhelmingly representatives by those from it's fighter wings. Space was a command within the USAF, but was stifled in both budget and representation. The stars finally aligned for it to be broken off. While it still resides within the Department of the Air Force (similar to how the Marines are within the Department of the Navy), it's CO reports directly to the President and they are budgeted separately through Congress.

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#99

Post by ahoka » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

psunavy03 wrote: post #41

SteveNuts wrote: post #6

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 . . .

Like the CEOs of Caterpillar, AMD, Nvidia, Google, Microsoft and Apple?

Re: Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

#100

Post by dylan604 » Mon, Oct 21, 2024, 5:26 PM UTC

accrual wrote: post #53

idunnoman1222 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remember this taking a second to click in high school physics class. The initial thought is that after an explosion all of the pieces fly away from a stationary point. The satellite is not stationary, so the pieces "flying away" only have their speed subtracted from the speed of the satellite.

The fact that orbital speeds are faster than explosions took a bit to sink in.