Article from FloridaToday.com
PARIS - An adrift Intelsat satellite that stopped communicating with its ground controllers last month remains out of control and has begun moving eastward along the geostationary arc, raising the threat of interference with other satellites in its path, Intelsat and other industry officials said.
In what industry officials called an unprecedented event, Intelsat's Galaxy 15 communications satellite has remained fully "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.
Galaxy 15 stopped responding to ground controllers on April 5. The satellite's manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, has said an intense solar storm in early April may be to blame. It was launched into space in 2005.
The first satellite likely to face signal interference problems from the adrift Galaxy 15 is the AMC-11 C-band satellite owned by SES of Luxembourg and stationed at 131 degrees west, just two degrees away from Galaxy 15's starting position.
Rob Bednarek, chief executive of the SES World Skies division, which operates AMC-11, said Intelsat and SES have been meeting since April 5 to coordinate how to minimize the Galaxy 15 impact on AMC-11's media customers.
Adrift in space
In an interview Friday, Bednarek said that while it remains unclear whether SES World Skies will be able to avoid a signal interference problem as Galaxy 15 enters the AMC-11 orbital territory, the company has benefited from full disclosure on the part of Intelsat, SES's biggest competitor.
"The cooperation with them really has been very good," Bednarek said. "We all realize that we could be in the same position tomorrow. We are neighbors in space."
Alan Young, chief technology officer at SES World Skies, said the company's best estimate is that Galaxy 15 will enter AMC-11's neighborhood — meaning one-half of one degree distant — May 23. It will continue traveling at its own pace through the AMC-11 slot, exiting on the east around June 7.
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