Air Force loses contact with weather satellite

a reply to: 3danimator2014

They're working on tiny ones that gang together to do a bigger mission, but they can't stay up long yet. There was a recent Atlas launch that carried 21 into orbit in addition to the primary payload.

originally posted by: EndOfDays77
Well I do wonder if these facts play into the true cause? And that being an EMP from Planet X..

Blackouts, plane electrical failures have become much more frequent and also not to mention that other satellites have fallen back to Earth..

For anyone who has followed the magnetosphere data (myself for two years) would notice the compressions and eddys have been increasing exponentially, more so in earnest since January 2015 all this occurring while the sun is silent!

Here's our culprit for EMPs, been observing this for two years!

Im not seeing anything in those photos that could create an EMP and knock out a satellite. Please tell me what im meant to be looking at. Also, im fairly certain that satellites will be shielded at least a bit against things like this since, you know , they are in space.

a reply to: 3danimator2014

Nope. Fourteen feet is not that big, but it's far too large to bring home in a vehicle which is only a bit over fifty percent larger than itself. A repair package could be sent on board such a vehicle, as Zaphod58 pointed out, but it would not be able to ferry the object back to earth, within its confines.

The thing you have to remember about satellites is, that when they are stowed for launch, all their appendages are tucked away, to be unfurled in orbit. Solar panels, sensor modules, communications antennae, and so on, all pop up, or extrude from the main body of the craft, in order that they get the best exposure to the sun, the target area, and the communications systems on the ground. In the event that the repair could not be enacted in space, one might still find oneself unable to retract those appendages into their stowed position, and so any vehicle sent with the intention of retrieving the satellite, would have to be able to either remove those appendages, casting them into space, or be large enough to contain the fully unfurled solar panels and other assorted protruding apparatus, within the confines of that return vehicle.

I do not believe that human kind currently possesses any such craft, or that if we do, it is not being publicised at present. Given the cost of launching just a satellite, and given the wingspan required to bring a craft capable of collecting a satellite from orbit, and returning to Earth, one would have to assume that any such mission would be amongst the most expensive to date, due to the cost of researching, developing and building such a mammoth of a space vehicle. The shuttle was not a small beast by any means, but even that amazing vehicle type would have had a struggle to encompass a misbehaving satellite of the size involved!

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: 3danimator2014

Nope. Fourteen feet is not that big, but it's far too large to bring home in a vehicle which is only a bit over fifty percent larger than itself. A repair package could be sent on board such a vehicle, as Zaphod58 pointed out, but it would not be able to ferry the object back to earth, within its confines.

The thing you have to remember about satellites is, that when they are stowed for launch, all their appendages are tucked away, to be unfurled in orbit. Solar panels, sensor modules, communications antennae, and so on, all pop up, or extrude from the main body of the craft, in order that they get the best exposure to the sun, the target area, and the communications systems on the ground. In the event that the repair could not be enacted in space, one might still find oneself unable to retract those appendages into their stowed position, and so any vehicle sent with the intention of retrieving the satellite, would have to be able to either remove those appendages, casting them into space, or be large enough to contain the fully unfurled solar panels and other assorted protruding apparatus, within the confines of that return vehicle.

I do not believe that human kind currently possesses any such craft, or that if we do, it is not being publicised at present. Given the cost of launching just a satellite, and given the wingspan required to bring a craft capable of collecting a satellite from orbit, and returning to Earth, one would have to assume that any such mission would be amongst the most expensive to date, due to the cost of researching, developing and building such a mammoth of a space vehicle. The shuttle was not a small beast by any means, but even that amazing vehicle type would have had a struggle to encompass a misbehaving satellite of the size involved!

This is gonna come across as me being crappy but i promise im not! But yeah, I know all that.

I still think 14 feet must be on the larger end of satellites if we are talking about body length. Can't really look into it right now so I'm probably wrong.

They jinxed it by calling it "flight-19." Gunna turn up in a Steven Spielberg movie.

a reply to: 3danimator2014

I believe I read somewhere that satellites can be as large as a school bus, weighing in at about the six ton mark, or as small as four inches, although the really tiny chaps are short duration, and tend to fall planet ward at the end of their brief mission cycle.

Also, an interesting aside, the oldest non functional satellite which is still in orbit, was launched in 1958, just a year after the first satellite to orbit the world was launched. Stuff stays up there pretty well, given the right conditions.

DMSP 5D-3 F-19 is in a 839km x 853km orbit inclined 98.85°

That's higher that the Shuttle could normally fly, and nobody has the capability to launch manned missions into polar orbits (manned spacesraft are heavy, and polar orbits require a lot of fuel and special launch sites to get there. The Shuttle was originally planned to launch from Vandenberg AFB, where the US launches all of its polar satellites, but these plans were round-filed after the Challenger disaster).

In principle, we could build a repair robot, but that would take a lot of time and a lot of money to do right.

It's cheaper to just build & launch a replacement satellite.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: 3danimator2014


Also, an interesting aside, the oldest non functional satellite which is still in orbit, was launched in 1958, just a year after the first satellite to orbit the world was launched. Stuff stays up there pretty well, given the right conditions.

That's amazing. Thanks for that factoid.

a reply to: DJW001

If they can re-establish contact temporarily, they might elect to de-orbit it deliberately to avoid further problems.

Think about what you just posted for a minute.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Well, that depends on how stable its current orbit is, how long it can remain aloft and stable without course correction,

The orbit is supposed to be about 450 miles.
So I would expect it to stay up for about 10 years (dead or alive).