Zombie Satellite Causes Astronomical Buzz

[FourScore]

Zombie Satellite Causes Astronomical Buzz
by Claudine Zap

...The communications satellite named Galaxy 15 lost contact with ground control after a solar flare probably fried its brain. As a story from the Christian Science Monitor reports, attempts from Earth to contact the satellite have been unsuccessful. But instead of just dying and drifting off, the satellite has continued to orbit the Earth, even though it refuses to receive instructions from its owner, Intelsat.

For the science nerds out there: The satellite is still on, with its "C-band telecommunications payload still functioning even as it has left its assigned orbital slot of 133 degrees west longitude 36,000 kilometers over the equator." Translation: Not good.

What's confounding scientists is that even though the satellite is toast, it continues to operate at full power, but with nobody telling it what to do. Why on earth we should care: The "zombiesat" (as its known in space talk) could steal a working sat signal, and interrupt programming for its customers. Yes, that means our television programs. The horror. As the blog Boing Boing points out, Galaxy 15 was one of the satellites that carried the Syfy channel's signal. And now it's met an end good enough to be its own Syfy show.

The Galaxy 15 is on course to mess with an SES satellite that transmits to Luxembourg. If it's any consolation to the good people of Luxembourg, officials are calling the situation "unprecedented..."

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/93656?fp=1

[dems_rightnow]

1. It's a National Emergency!!!!

Don't fuck with people's TV. Anything else goes.

[AllentownJake]

2. Well this might cause rioting in America

Nuke the fucker.

:rofl:

[SpiralHawk]

5. Give it a Junk Shot

That seems to be the Solution O' the day.

[AllentownJake]

6. We need golf balls to get the evil satelite fucking with Caprica

NOW!

[FourScore]

3. Hal: "I can't do that, Dave." n/t

[KittyWampus]

4. written by Claudien Zap. I love this story. Zombie Satellite.... Astronomical robots run amok.

[CanonRay]

7. I get the feeling our technology is starting to bit us in theass

between the oil well and this.

[The Doctor.]

8. Isn't this how V-ger was born, then came back to destroy Earth,

after starting a race of Borg?

If so, we've got about 500 years to figure it out.

[AllentownJake]

9. They rewrote the Borg story

Now it was started by a divergence of an advanced life form not Vger.

Actually a pretty good read.

[Javaman]

10. Personally, I welcome our new Zombie Satellite overlords. nt

[madokie]

18. It'll depend on if they're pro-nuke or not

:-)

[PDittie]

11. Skynet is about to become self-aware.

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!1!1!!

[Canuckistanian]

12. How can a satellite "steal a signal"?

I can see if it drifted EXACTLY in front of another satellite in geosynchronous orbit, it might BLOCK the other satellite's signal. But only temporarily.

And if were using the SAME EXACT uplink and downlink frequencies, it might send the signal where it shouldn't go. But that shouldn't interfere with any other satellite.

Would it?

[Blackhatjack]

13. One Good Blast of the US DARPA Developed Death Ray and ZombieSat is History!

Satellites are just targets floating in space waiting to be blasted with extremely high powered weapons developed by the Military.

This will just give them an opportunity to do a little target practice.

Of course, the ZombieSat's demise will be attributed to 'natural causes.'

[PDittie]

15. Blame it on the Ill Eagles

Or Obama. Or ACORN.

[FLPanhandle]

17. Blasting it into pieces may be the worst thing they could do though.

Hundreds of pieces of the satellite all spinning off into their own orbit in the same vicinity as other communications satellites would be a major problem.

[slackmaster]

14. Sounds like a good candidate for a shoot-down test

http://members.cox.net/southparkmilitia/images/guns/AR-50_+_hippie.jpg

[Tailormyst]

16. They already successfully shot one down!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4251430

This was Feb 2008 I believe.