I heard the official word was a positioning thruster got stuck on,, HOW could a solar eclipse on the other side of the world affect a satellite! This seems CRAZY! next, martians will be stripping it for parts to fix their UFO.
"But Sky spokesman Tony O'Brien said the problem occurred because the eclipse happened at the moment the sun was required to charge the satellite's batteries for a routine realignment."
So lets look at these comments - firstly are Sky saying that Optus have no idea of the battery status of their satellite? Get real - they monitor every minute detail of it! If the power levels were low there is no way you would attempt such a move. The big issue now is speculation they used a lot of fuel in this move and that hopefully they have enough to get it out of orbit when they terminate it in a few months. Parking space up there is like Lambton Quay - very valuable!
Sure enough in herald today there was an article on "thruster issue looks to have caused failure"
Yes, heard that it might have spent off most of it's gas,, it was spinning around for some time and not sure how it would have been programmed, you'd assume it'll stop. They have about 30 years of gas supply, they are supposed to work for 12 years (avg design life) then push themselves down towards earth for a burnup. at the end. Optus A1 is still up there,, 20 something years later. it's one of the old 1970's ones that looks like a spaghetti can with MickeyMouse® ears on it
Optus B1 looks likt this
Thruster problems plague satellites, Someone I know knows all about them, Much more than I ever will know.
It is a shame that they feel fit to treat us in that way by using such a far fetched excuse..."we'll just tell em that an eclipse on the other side of the world, 21 hours ago did it, mwhahaha that will do it nicely,what do they know? we could even tell em it was the flux capacitor!"
retardinator: It is a shame that they feel fit to treat us in that way by using such a far fetched excuse..."we'll just tell em that an eclipse on the other side of the world, 21 hours ago did it, mwhahaha that will do it nicely,what do they know? we could even tell em it was the flux capacitor!"
Market protection. Talking with a customer today who commented that the problem was caused by nothing more than a freek one of incident. She's a well educated legal professional yet this was the extent of her knowledge.
What would happen in the stock market if investors started to smell fear?
What would happen in the user base if customers started to smell fear?
People understand that a solar eclips is a one off event so they associate the problem with this cause and don't worry.
Notice that the media didn't make a song out of the fact that the unit is on its back up SCP and history shows that the back up doesn't last very long.
Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly
to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.
Trusted
Biddle Corp
Lifetime subscriber
