On Wed, 22 Dec 2010, Dave Anderson KG4YZY wrote:
Galaxy 15, still adrift in space - but with a potential crisis averted. Back
in April, Intelsat lost control of its Galaxy 15 communications satellite,
and ever since then the bird has been drifting slowly eastward, ignoring all
attempts to communicate with it. Later this month, Galaxy 15 will drift into
the orbital position of its sister satellite, Galaxy 16, which hosts the
Public Radio Satellite Service (PRSS) feeds, among others. A few weeks ago,
PRSS warned its customers (who include commercial stations as well as the
nation's public broadcasters) that there would be a possibility of
disruption to its services on or about December 26. But on Monday, PRSS
passed along some good news: it says Intelsat has finally succeeded in
powering down the transmitters on the rogue satellite. So when Galaxy 15
begins entering Galaxy 16's orbital position on Friday, it won't be
transmitting any signals to interfere with PRSS and the other services that
use the popular Galaxy 16 - and a whole bunch of engineers and operations
directors can enjoy Christmas weekend without having this particular worry
hanging 23,000 miles over their heads.
This is good news, that rogue bird will not be affecting any other
communication satellites.
Goodbye, and good riddance, G-15. Thanks for the update, Dave!
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Gilbert Sebenste ********
(My opinions only!) ******
Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University ****
E-mail: sebenste@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ***
web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu **
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