Los Angeles: In geostationary orbit, a Boeing-built Intelsat communication satellite exploded and fragmented, causing Intelsat to declare a “total loss.”
With the recent failures of the Star liner crew test flight and ongoing problems with its 737 Max and 777x aircraft, Boeing is already facing several difficulties; this occurrence is just one more setback.
About 20 pieces of the explosion’s debris are actively tracked by the US Space Force. They haven’t mentioned any imminent dangers to nearby satellites.
On the other hand, Roscosmos is monitoring about 80 fragments from the collision, the Russian space agency.
To perform a thorough investigation into the cause of the explosion, Intelsat has called a Failure Review Board.
Intelsat is now trying to move users to one of its other satellites or outside spacecraft to minimize service interruption. The corporate representative disclosed that the satellite lacked insurance, further increasing the incident’s financial consequences.
Other satellites might be at risk from the explosion’s debris. “There is a lot of uncertainty regarding the orbits of these fragments at the moment,” said a spokesperson for Spaceflux, a UK-based organization that watches objects in orbit. Although we do not yet know, they could be a threat to other satellites.
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Operating on Boeing’s 720MP satellite architecture, the Intelsat 33e satellite is one of six “EpicNG” spacecraft the company has manufactured. It is equipped with 16 hydrazine-powered engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, and is widely used for satellite TV/radio broadcasting, internet, and phone services.
It is noteworthy that Intelsat 33e’s primary thruster malfunctioned three months before it went into service, and another propulsion problem shortened its service life by 3.5 years.
This isn’t the first EpicNG satellite to have problems; Intelsat 29e, the first of its kind, was declared a complete loss in 2019 after only three years in operation, either because of a wiring defect or a meteoroid hit.
Boeing’s satellite technologies’ dependability raise concerns about the growing problems involving the EpicNG satellites.
Industry analysts are closely monitoring how the debris from the explosion may affect other functioning satellites in geostationary orbit as the situation unfolds.