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An Intelsat communications satellite built by Boeing, launched three years ago, is drifting into geostationary orbit after being leaked and releasing fragments of debris last week, according to an analysis by space surveillance experts.
The ground-based telescopes operated by ExoAnalytic Solutions, a commercial company tracking objects in space through a network of optical telescopes, show that the Intelsat 29e communications satellite is tipping over, fleeing from the propeller and drifting to across the geostationary arc, where many communications satellites are stationed 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above the equator.
The telescopic images also seem to show that several debris were removed from the satellite last week, according to Bill Therien, senior vice president of engineering at ExoAnalytic Solutions.
In a statement on April 10, Intelsat said the Intelsat 29th spacecraft had "suffered damage" on April 7, which resulted in a fuel leak. The event has disabled Intelsat 29th. The latter indicated that its customers would be transferred to other Intelsat satellites and third-party services to mitigate the outages affecting customers of maritime, aeronautical and wireless operators in the Latin America, Caribbean and North Atlantic regions.
In an interview with Spaceflight Now late Friday, Therien said the ExoAnalytic sensors had detected a change in the brightness of Intelsat 29th on April 8, suggesting that the spacecraft was in the process of tipping over. The monitoring data collected by ExoAnalytic also showed that the satellite had begun to move eastward from its operational position at about the same time.
Intelsat stated that Intelsat 29e experienced a second anomaly on 9 April, which resulted in a loss of communication with the satellite. On April 10, ExoAnalytic sensors detected debris coming out of the satellite, followed by new fragments over the next few days, Therien said.
"Communication with the satellite has been intermittent," Intelsat said in a statement. "Intelsat continues to work with satellite manufacturer Boeing to resume communication."
Therien said that the largest debris seen off Intelsat 29th does not exceed one meter, or about 3.3 feet. A rain of smaller particles observed by ExoAnalytic could be a fuel leak from the satellite propeller tanks, or pieces of the spacecraft itself, Therien told Spaceflight Now.
Intelsat 29th was launched on 27 January 2016 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana for a planned 15-year mission. According to the design of the Boeing 702MP satellite, Intelsat 29e was placed in a geostationary orbit at 50 degrees west longitude, where its propellers kept the satellite stationed in the same geographical region, the orbital speed of the spacecraft corresponding to the rotational speed of the earth.
Since its commercial operations three years ago, Intelsat 29e has been providing C-band video and data services in South America and transmitting Ku-band signals across the Americas, including aeronautical routes over the world. above the North Atlantic, where passengers were receiving live television and broadband internet. the satellite.
Intelsat 29e was the first vehicle to launch a new generation of Intelsat satellites, the "Epic" series, capable of carrying more data than previous satellite models.
Engineers continue to investigate the cause of the anomaly on Intelsat 29e, and officials have not said whether the problem came from the space shuttle or a collision with a micrometeoroid or space debris.
The behavior of Intelsat 29e recalls the failures of the communication satellites AMC 9 and Telkom 1 in 2017. These two satellites projected debris after undergoing brief anomalies in their geostationary orbit.
AMC 9 and Telkom 1 – built respectively by Thales Alenia Space and Lockheed Martin – are approaching the end of their useful life, while Intelsat 29e is still a relatively new spacecraft.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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