A satellite belonging to multinational service provider Intelsat mysteriously broke up in geostationary orbit over the weekend.
Surprised Pikachu face…
Large Boeing Satellite Suddenly Explodes Into Pieces
Submitted 4 weeks ago by shoulderoforion@fedia.io to technology@lemmy.world
https://futurism.com/the-byte/large-satellite-explodes-pieces
Comments
0x0@programming.dev 4 weeks ago
billiam0202@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Hmm, sounds like Boeing needs to fire more engineers.
And increase C-level compensation, of course.
this_1_is_mine@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I don’t know this smells of some pencil Pusher looking at an engineer going “can you bring the cost of that rubber o-ring down 13 cents”… “I know you were looking for a specific type of seal but I got this huge assortment pack right here from my local temu…”
HighlyRegardedArtist@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
And do some more stock buybacks and raise dividends, of course.
Vanth@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
Well, it is public knowledge that layoffs and furloughs are happening, so sadly, you’re not wrong.
And they somehow enticed Kelly Ortberg out of retirement to take over as CEO. There’s the hella juicy c-suite compensation package you talked about. He was already riding golden after he maneuvered that Rockwell Collins sale/merger/whatever.
TechnologyChef@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Exactly why I wonder where our business school ethics go when it seems to me that value is only placed on what can be tied to everyone’s income and profit being the ‘sole’ provider for it, and any Engineer’s ethics being a nice thing for their own time. What would happen if we switch it up to Engineers being in charge who actually learn to make the product and the business side being the client of it rather than the other way around? Could the world be a better place? This doesn’t mean every engineer or either group as a monolith is good or bad. Just that maybe in economics we can see who may value externalities even in capitalism as Adam Smith seemed to promote over just profit.
jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
TK420@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
An epic pattern my be on the horizon soon??
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Their first mistake was building on the BeamNG platform.
piskertariot@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Selective quoting is basically lying.
The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak. Intelsat declared the satellite a total loss in April 2019, later attributing it to either a micrometeoroid strike or solar weather activity.
With the context of the quote, I"m curious what the pattern you’ve identified is.
echodot@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
That’s actually quite impressive because most satellites just don’t do anything when they die. Bones vehicles die with flare, and depressing regularity
bitwaba@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
“in space no one can hear you scream”
Boeing satellites: “AHHHHHH!!!”
yogurt@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
That’s only because they’re designed with passivation to vent tanks and disconnect batteries to remove sources of explosion when they start to die. If that fails the tanks eventually pop from thermal cycling or the solar panels overcharge the battery until it blows up like a Russian satellite did earlier this year.
Ookami38@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
What, was it blowing a whistle?
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Did the front fall off?
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
I guess space is technically out of the environment.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
They thought it did … so they tried turning it off then on again … and it exploded.
Telorand@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
“Did it pass the smoke test?”
“Kinda… There’s no smoke, anyway…”
KingOfSleep@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
That line was really funny. The first time we heard it. Many years ago.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
It’s roughly equivalent to “something something pilot’s balls” in the comments of a video of an aircraft.
A joke that’s been absolutely beaten to death years ago, but people just will not accept it’s run it’s course.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Man they are just on fire lately
Fedizen@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
firerapidly decompressingflyingjake@lemmy.one 4 weeks ago
Lol I believe it would be rapid uncontrolled oxidation
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
… 7 members of Hezbollah injured.
ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That brought a legit chuckle!
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Great, more bits of dangerous junk in orbit. The fuckers should have to clear up their mess before it fucks up other satellites.
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 4 weeks ago
This is actually a real problem more so in this case than most. There’s an awful lot of satellites in low Earth orbit, altitude of a few hundred to several hundred kilometers. Atmospheric drag still exists here a little bit, and thus space junk will reenter and burn up in years or decades.
This satellite was in geostationary orbit, at an altitude of about 36,000 km. Debris up there can take hundreds of years to come down. Geostationary is a special altitude where the satellite orbits at exactly the same rate as the Earth spins. That means that a fixed dish on Earth will always point at the satellite without needing to move or track. So there’s just one narrow orbital ring around the equator for that. That ring is not a place we want space junk to be, because if it gets too hazardous for satellites in GEO that basically removes our capability as a species to use fixed satellite dishes for anything. And that problem won’t go away for centuries.
Kbobabob@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
How did it break up? I wasn’t aware that Boeing was determined to be a fault in the build process.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Yeah fair point. Boeing has a degraded reputation these days but at the mo we don’t know why it broke up. Probably never will. I’m kinda going on Occam’s razor here.
acockworkorange@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
Circunstancial evidence points to Boeing being a failed company.
ravhall@discuss.online 4 weeks ago
Boeing killed John Barnett.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
True? I think so. Off-topic? Also true.
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 4 weeks ago
This is a story about Being. How could it be off topic?
ravhall@discuss.online 4 weeks ago
BOEING KILLED JOHN BARNETT
lunar17@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
This is slightly concerning. Satellites don’t tend to explode on their own, but it is a Boeing design with a history of leaky propulsion, so who knows?
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Sure it was a Comm satellite for the world’s tensest area, which is about to go to war.
who would have ASAT capability at GEO?
how could it be launched to GEO undetected?
Zron@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
If you’re a government, you can pretty much put anything in a rocket fairing and call it a reconnaissance satellite.
The only warning that actually has to be given is that a rocket is being launched, so you don’t accidentally trigger WW3 by setting off launch detection satellites without warning. After it’s in space, no one can really tell what was in the fairing. Could be a spy satellite, could be navigation. Could just be a box with a bunch of little rockets in it, designed to slam into whatever you want at ridiculous speed.
But it’s way more likely that this was just Boeing having a tiny leak in a propellant tank, or a bad thruster and as soon as the concentration of propellant and oxidizer got high enough, it triggered a detonation. They certainly have a history of not leak testing their shit: airplanes falling apart, space capsules with leaky thrusters, and now a blown up satellite point more towards incompetence than malice.
SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Is this a trick question? Cause you might as well be asking a 1600s peasant how to develop film.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
China has anti geosync capability.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
…was designed and manufactured by Boeing Space Systems and launched in 2016. It provided broadband services, including internet and phone communication services, to parts of Europe, Africa, and most of Asia.
IS-33e was the second satellite to be launched as part of Boeing’s “next generation” EpicNG platform. The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak. Intelsat declared the satellite a total loss in April 2019, later attributing it to either a micrometeoroid strike or solar weather activity.
What caused IS-33e to break up in orbit remains unclear, however. Intesalt officials did observe that it was using far more fuel than it should be to maintain its orbit shortly after launching eight years ago, shaving off 3.5 years of its 15-year lifetime.
Could be a coincidence, but I feel “Boeing leaks” approaching “Samsung exploding” levels of memification (where they had washers, phones and some other things all exploding, and the look was not great).
yeather@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Samsung makes consumer grade products that are “easily” replaced or fixed. Boeing makes shit for the US military, and they will 100% get what’s coming to them when a Boeing military project spontaneously combusts.
echodot@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
I do sort of feel that Samsung got a bit of a bad rep for their phones exploding because it wasn’t really their fault. The company that made the batteries took shortcuts in the manufacturing process and that’s what caused the fires. If they had followed the instructions Samsung had given them they would have been okay.
LavenderDay3544@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Go look up what Samsung started out selling. They make a ton of military shit too just mostly for their own country.
toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Another Unsafe Product, Brought To You By Boeing!
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 4 weeks ago
Wow, Boeing keeps finding new and interesting ways to be incompetent. They seriously need their entire C-suite replaced with engineering types.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 4 weeks ago
The saddest thing about that is they mostly are.
Business majors are the office grunts and middle managers of corporatism. Capital interests are more than aware that business degrees are basically adult daycares, and prefer engineering degrees for C-levels in industry.
Pacattack57@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I saw an interview with Jack Ma (I think) where he said his job isn’t to be the smartest at the job. His job is to find the smart people and make sure they work together. I think that may be what’s happening here. Leadership is incapable of holding the engineers accountable and making sure they follow all safety protocols. Whether that is incompetence or malice I’m sure we’ll never know for sure.
nialv7@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To be fair this satellite was built in 2016.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
That’s after the merger.
Toofpic@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
Sorry, I just bought several Boeing stocks at the time they didn’t kill anyone yet, and now they have to do all that stuff to not let me out with a profit
clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Boeing: outsources to an outsourcer who outsources to an outsourcer who outsources to an outsourcer who outsources to an outsourcer and so on and still has the shamelessness of appearing surprised at the shit quality and reliability they deliver
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
Sounds like that case of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contracted killing in China that one time
superkret@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
IS-33e was the second satellite to be launched as part of Boeing’s “next generation” EpicNG platform. The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak. Intelsat declared the satellite a total loss in April 2019, later attributing it to either a micrometeoroid strike or solar weather activity.
What caused IS-33e to break up in orbit remains unclear, however. Intesalt officials did observe that it was using far more fuel than it should be to maintain its orbit shortly after launching eight years ago, shaving off 3.5 years of its 15-year lifetime.
Boeing produces more leaks than this guy:
floofloof@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
I was on a Boeing plane the other day that was delayed while I watched a guy with a wrench trying to stop fuel leaking out of the wing.
XeroxCool@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
At least it was outside. Better out than in, I always say
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
Whenever I Nowadays when I fly the fiirst criteria when I search for flights I check the airline’s fleet, then price.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I’m not really into the stock market, but I would not buy Boeing at the moment.
reddit_sux@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Now would be the best time to do it
BarryHalls@lemmings.world 4 weeks ago
Unless it’s a dead cat moment :)
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I dunno, I think they could still surprise us with new ways to fuck up.
bamfic@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
If it hadnt exploded into peices,what would it havr exploded into instead?
superkret@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
Your mom
timewarp@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Regulations
Acklavidian@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Parts
0x0@programming.dev 4 weeks ago
Smaller components.
Quexotic@infosec.pub 4 weeks ago
🎶 It’s not the best choice it’s Spacers Choice!🎶
Zip2@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
Rapid unscheduled disassembly.
Plus “Into pieces” is rather unnecessary there.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
Was it a Satellite Max?
dreikelvin@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Satellite: “But I wasn’t boing anything wrong!”
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I’m honestly happy to see that it just had a fuel malfunction instead of the implication of an outside cause…
PiJiNWiNg@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
So now this satellite can be an “anomaly” for another satellite, and the circle of life continues…
ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 4 weeks ago
J E W I S H. S P A C E. L A S E R S!
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
did you know that high powered lasers are invisible to the naked without a sufficient particulate medium to pass through?
kandoh@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
Jack Welch is up there with the guy who invented leaded gasoline and the chemicals that put holes in the ozone.
octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
So in addition to the Boeing low hanging fruit - feels like the opener to a scifi story involving either covert space weapons testing or the start to some kind of extraterrestrial invasion. 😁
PanArab@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
The door plug again?
toiletobserver@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It burnt down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.
JPAKx4@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Kessler Syndrome anyone?
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
It was probably a whistleblower satellite.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
That satellite was about to reveal company secrets
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
The secret is that Boeing is run by criminally careless assholes. Wait, that’s not a secret.