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 1 week ago by shoulderoforion@fedia.io to technology@lemmy.world
https://futurism.com/the-byte/large-satellite-explodes-pieces
Comments
0x0@programming.dev 1 week ago
billiam0202@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Hmm, sounds like Boeing needs to fire more engineers.
And increase C-level compensation, of course.
this_1_is_mine@lemmy.world 1 week 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 1 week ago
And do some more stock buybacks and raise dividends, of course.
Vanth@reddthat.com 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week ago
TK420@lemmy.world 1 week ago
An epic pattern my be on the horizon soon??
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Their first mistake was building on the BeamNG platform.
piskertariot@lemmy.world 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week ago
“in space no one can hear you scream”
Boeing satellites: “AHHHHHH!!!”
yogurt@lemm.ee 1 week 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 1 week ago
What, was it blowing a whistle?
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Did the front fall off?
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
I guess space is technically out of the environment.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
They thought it did … so they tried turning it off then on again … and it exploded.
Telorand@reddthat.com 1 week ago
“Did it pass the smoke test?”
“Kinda… There’s no smoke, anyway…”
KingOfSleep@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
That line was really funny. The first time we heard it. Many years ago.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 1 week 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 1 week ago
Man they are just on fire lately
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 week ago
firerapidly decompressingflyingjake@lemmy.one 1 week ago
Lol I believe it would be rapid uncontrolled oxidation
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 1 week ago
… 7 members of Hezbollah injured.
ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That brought a legit chuckle!
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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 6 days ago
Circunstancial evidence points to Boeing being a failed company.
lunar17@lemmy.world 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week ago
Is this a trick question? Cause you might as well be asking a 1600s peasant how to develop film.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 5 days ago
China has anti geosync capability.
ravhall@discuss.online 1 week ago
Boeing killed John Barnett.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
True? I think so. Off-topic? Also true.
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 1 week ago
This is a story about Being. How could it be off topic?
ravhall@discuss.online 1 week ago
BOEING KILLED JOHN BARNETT
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week ago
To be fair this satellite was built in 2016.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 6 days ago
That’s after the merger.
Toofpic@feddit.dk 1 week 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
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week ago
Another Unsafe Product, Brought To You By Boeing!
clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world 1 week 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 1 week ago
Sounds like that case of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contracted killing in China that one time
superkret@feddit.org 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week ago
At least it was outside. Better out than in, I always say
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 1 week 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 1 week ago
I’m not really into the stock market, but I would not buy Boeing at the moment.
reddit_sux@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Now would be the best time to do it
BarryHalls@lemmings.world 1 week ago
Unless it’s a dead cat moment :)
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 1 week ago
I dunno, I think they could still surprise us with new ways to fuck up.
Quexotic@infosec.pub 1 week ago
🎶 It’s not the best choice it’s Spacers Choice!🎶
bamfic@lemmy.world 1 week ago
If it hadnt exploded into peices,what would it havr exploded into instead?
superkret@feddit.org 1 week ago
Your mom
timewarp@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Regulations
Acklavidian@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Parts
0x0@programming.dev 1 week ago
Smaller components.
Zip2@feddit.uk 1 week ago
Rapid unscheduled disassembly.
Plus “Into pieces” is rather unnecessary there.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Was it a Satellite Max?
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’m honestly happy to see that it just had a fuel malfunction instead of the implication of an outside cause…
dreikelvin@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Satellite: “But I wasn’t boing anything wrong!”
kandoh@reddthat.com 1 week ago
Jack Welch is up there with the guy who invented leaded gasoline and the chemicals that put holes in the ozone.
PiJiNWiNg@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
So now this satellite can be an “anomaly” for another satellite, and the circle of life continues…
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 1 week ago
did you know that high powered lasers are invisible to the naked without a sufficient particulate medium to pass through?
ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 1 week ago
J E W I S H. S P A C E. L A S E R S!
octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 1 week 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 1 week ago
The door plug again?
toiletobserver@lemmy.world 1 week ago
It burnt down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.
JPAKx4@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
Kessler Syndrome anyone?
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
It was probably a whistleblower satellite.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
That satellite was about to reveal company secrets
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
The secret is that Boeing is run by criminally careless assholes. Wait, that’s not a secret.