Largest communication satellite ditched into the sea

Jeslek

Jeslek

Banned
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2561729.stm

The world's largest communications satellite has been ditched into the sea, two weeks after a Russian rocket failed to put it into the correct orbit.
Satellite controllers used the Astra-1K's engines to plunge it into the southern Pacific Ocean, says Russian space forces spokesman Vyacheslav Davidyenko.

The Astra-1K was the largest communications satellite ever built.

It was manufactured by the SES-Astra corporation for Society European Des Satellites of Luxembourg and weighed nearly six tonnes.

Industry setback

The French-made satellite was rendered useless following its 26 November launch on a Russian proton rocket.

The launch went wrong when an upper stage booster unit failed to push the satellite into its intended orbit.

The Astra-1K should have been put in a geostationary orbit, about 36,000 km (23,000 miles) above the Earth.

Its owners later established partial control over the satellite but told BBC News Online it would never be able to carry out its main mission of handling signals for radio, television, mobile telephones and the internet.

The failure is a setback for Russia's satellite-launching programme.

It follows the 15 October explosion of another Russian rocket, also carrying a satellite, half a minute after lift-off.
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Sad.
 
Yeah, how come I never hear about US satellite launches fucking up and sending multi-billion-dollar satellites into the South Pacific?
 
Inkara1 said:
Yeah, how come I never hear about US satellite launches fucking up and sending multi-billion-dollar satellites into the South Pacific?
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I don't remember that happening either, but the challenger comes to my mind ;)
 
Challeneger was a very sad story of politics. Half the parts were made in one state, and half were made in another state because of ... POLITICS. Scientists recommended against it, and they did not heed. It costed men and women their lives. :(
 
The costs to launch sattelites from US soil are like 10 times as expensive because of labor costs and general tripling of the fuel and consequently the weight of the overall payload because we are so north. These launches are generally done out of Guyana and such ... anything that is on the equator and stable in the political sense. Its just umpteen times easier to launch from there.. and just so happens to be in the right orbital path to where the sattelite was ultimately meant to go.
 
That sucks... it's not like you can pull a satelite out of your ass and just launch it. This sort of endeavor takes a lot of money.
 
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