Intelsat rogue satellite: Nothing to worry about

Intelsat says its Galaxy 15 satellite poses no threats

Looking to mitigate some of the fall-out from its rogue satellite, Intelsat today said its meandering Galaxy 15 satellite poses no real danger of crashing to Earth, or into another satellite. 

Intelsat said its Galaxy 15 satellite had "an anomaly on 5 April 2010" and that the system's traffic, which provides transmission capacity for cable programmers, was moved to Intelsat's Galaxy 12 satellite.  Some published reports indicate the G-15 was hit by a solar flare, but Intelsat has no indication that happened, according to Dianne VanBeber, Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications at Intelsat. 

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Published reports say no major service problems have occurred yet from the loss of the satellite.  Intelsat and Orbital Sciences Corporation, the manufacturer of the G-15, continue to look into the situation, Intelsat says.  

The main concern seems to be that the G-15 actually interfere with the AMC-11 satellite which supports such popular cable services as Food Network, HGTV, A&E, MTV and Nickelodeon.  But according to VanBeber, Intelsat has technology that would minimize or eliminate such a possibility. 

Specifically Intelsat said: 

"The Galaxy 15 satellite, which experienced an anomaly on 5 April 2010, continues to drift eastward, as expected. Intelsat is aware of Galaxy 15's location, its rate of drift and its projected course over the coming weeks. Intelsat has more experience operating satellites than any other company in the world. 

It is highly unlikely Galaxy 15 will collide with another satellite - and the possibility is even more remote that it would come crashing to Earth.  There are a number of technical alternatives to mitigate interference with the communications signals with other nearby satellites that can be executed from the earth that our engineers will execute. 

Our customers also have talented staffs that we will support in implementing these solutions. Intelsat is confident that disruptions to television programming will be minimal or even avoided entirely, up to the point when Galaxy 15 eventually loses its transmission connection with the Earth, eliminating the potential for interference." 

No need to call out the military. 

Follow Michael Cooney on Twitter: nwwlayer8  

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