News Telkom-1 Satellite Erupting Debris

[Nicholas Kang]

Telescopes operated by ExoAnalytic Solutions caught Telkom-1 spewing debris into geostationary orbit after an Aug. 25 anomaly. Credit: ExoAnalytic Solutions.

Ground-based observations of PT Telkom’s 18-year old Telkom-1 satellite show a large cloud of debris generated the night the satellite lost contact with customers across Indonesia.

ExoAnalytic Solutions, a commercial space-situational-awareness company that employs a network of telescopes to track satellites and other orbital objects, recorded the event Aug. 25. That was the same day Indonesian satellite operator PT Telkom says Telkom-1 experienced its antenna problem

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Telkom-1 is at least the second debris-creating satellite ExoAnalytic Solutions has tracked in the past three months. In June, its telescope network tracked debris associated with the still-unexplained failure of AMC-9, a 14-year-old communications satellite that fleet operator SES was using to serve North America.

 

[GLS]

A satellite sneezing... never thought I'd see that. :lol:

 

[Donamy]

Micro-meteorites perhaps.

 

[Andy44]

More likely battery problems. That seems to be the most common cause of spontaneous disassembly in orbit. Though I'm just speculating.

Debris clouds in GEO are a Bad Thing, since that particular orbit is so desirable to comm sat operators.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

But, at least relative velocities are much lower than LEO.

 

[Andy44]

But, at least relative velocities are much lower than LEO.

That's of little consolation. Getting hit by something at hundreds of miles an hour instead of thousands doesn't help you much when you're a delicate satellite. Keep in mind that a small difference in inclination between two objects in GEO can easily add up to mouth-smashing cross track speeds. And relative speeds will build up over time as these objects drift off due to perturbations and start forming a donut ring around the earth.

Also, what little consolation you do get from the lower relative velocities is more than canceled out by the fact that the GEO belt is a busy place where everybody is at roughly the same altitude in roughly the same plane, so a debris cloud forming there means a debris cloud you are constantly in danger of.

About the only mitigating factor as far as I can tell is that at higher altitudes, space between objects is just bigger and wider, allowing you fall back on the "Big Sky" theory: "little spacecraft, big sky, no worries (almost)".

 

[Urwumpe]

The worse danger comes from this things colliding with its debris, that are not in GSO. upper stages for example. Or SRM slag. The more uncontrolled debris you have near GSO, the higher the chances that one of it collides it particles of different kinetic energy: The cloud spreads out more over more different orbits. with more velocity differences.