14 DAY TRIAL // This April, the Galaxy 15 C-band telecommunications satellite went out of control in Earth's orbit, turning into what experts have interestingly called a zombie spacecraft. Since then, its path has been threatening that of other satellites.
Officials at Intelsat, the company that operates the instrument, says that chances are high it will continue to emit signals until November, or maybe even December.
The satellite is currently on an uncontrolled drift along an orbit that takes it very close to other instruments. Operators of the other spacecrafts need to modify the altitude of their own machines to avoid impact.
Collisions in Earth-'s orbit are extremely dangerous, because they are sufficiently strong to completely obliterate the objects slamming into each other.
The result is a rain of debris, that fans out from the impact site, threatening everything in their path. Depending on the altitude of the collision, the junk can affect space telescopes, or the International Space Station (ISS).
Additionally, more orbital debris imply less safety for shuttle missions taking off to the orbital facility, as well as for Russian Soyuz space capsules. Unmanned space vehicles, such as ESA's ATV and JAXA's HTV can also be destroyed by junk.
Galaxy-15 is not yet in that situation, but experts are very concerned about the path it takes. It is currently located on a geostationary orbit some 36,000 kilometers above the Equator.
Initially, Intelsat and Orbital Science Corporation (OSC), the builder of the spacecraft, said that it would lose the ability to turn its solar panels to face the Sun by August, Space reports.
Being unable to do this is a death sentence for satellites. The onboard systems quickly drain the remaining energy, and the spacecraft eventually shuts down due to lack of electricity.
OSC hopes to use this moment to hit the reset button on the satellite, hopefully bringing it back under control. But the Intelsat spacecraft has proven very resilient.
“We have been surprised by this. This is really a robust satellite. But to our knowledge this has been an unprecedented situation, and we are learning as we go,” says Tobias Nassif.
The official is the vice president for satellite operations and engineering at Intelsat.