New Intelsat 29e satellite video reveals dramatic "anomaly"

After the decommissioning of another satellite in geostationary orbit this week, at least temporarily, new data now suggests that the satellite might not be recoverable.

On Wednesday, the Intelsat satellite operator acknowledged a "service outage" on its Intelsat 29e satellite, which had affected customers of maritime, aeronautical and wireless operators in Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States. North Atlantic. During the incident of Sunday, April 7, the spacecraft propulsion system "suffered damage that caused a leakage of the propellant on board the satellite," said Intelsat. At that time, Intelsat was periodically losing communications with the satellite, but the company was working with its manufacturer, Boeing, to re-establish the connection.

However, the new data from ExoAnalytic Solutions, which has a network of 300 telescopes around the planet to track the movements of satellites in the geostationary space, show that the situation has occurred. significantly worse.

Since he was alerted on Sunday, the company is monitoring Intelsat 29th with at least two telescopes, said company CEO Doug Hendrix in Ars. On Thursday, one of these telescopes captured the embedded video below, which shows continuous satellite fragmentation over a four-hour period. The ball of light in the center is Intelsat 29th and the trails are stars in the background. First, there is a series of abnormal gas release events from the probe, after which a persistent halo subsists. As the halo dissipates, more debris continues to be tracked.

Prior to Thursday 's incident, the satellite had drifted about 0.5 degrees a day to the east. After the sequence of events, this drifting movement increased by 1 degree per day, Hendrix said. The main satellite has now fallen below the geostationary altitude, but it is not clear whether some of the debris it has created could still threaten satellites operating in a geostationary orbit.

For the moment, Hendrix said the company would work backwards and review the data to try to determine if an external event, such as a micrometeorite or existing debris in the geostationary environment, might have been at the time. Origin of the initial problem related to the satellite, namely: only three years and near the beginning of its life in orbit. "When there is an anomaly like this with a young satellite, it forces us to understand the outside environment," he said.