It was probably a whistleblower satellite.
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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That satellite was about to reveal company secrets
The secret is that Boeing is run by criminally careless assholes. Wait, that's not a secret.
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Surprised Pikachu face...
IS-33e was the second satellite to be launched as part of Boeing's "next generation" EpicNG platform. The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak.
I see a pattern.
Hmm, sounds like Boeing needs to fire more engineers.
And increase C-level compensation, of course.
There really is no other option.
Just gonna throw this idea out there:
What if they hired a bunch of engineers who graduated from sketchy, unaccredited colleges in foreign countries and paid them half as much much?
Is this like when Americans blamed Pakistani coders for B737/MCAS debacle only to be proven they implemented Boeing's (fatally flawed) specifications to the letter?
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I don't know this smells of some pencil Pusher looking at an engineer going "can you bring the cost of that rubber o-ring down 13 cents"... "I know you were looking for a specific type of seal but I got this huge assortment pack right here from my local temu...."
And do some more stock buybacks and raise dividends, of course.
Well, it is public knowledge that layoffs and furloughs are happening, so sadly, you're not wrong.
And they somehow enticed Kelly Ortberg out of retirement to take over as CEO. There's the hella juicy c-suite compensation package you talked about. He was already riding golden after he maneuvered that Rockwell Collins sale/merger/whatever.
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That's actually quite impressive because most satellites just don't do anything when they die. Boeing's vehicles die with flare, and depressing regularity
"in space no one can hear you scream"
Boeing satellites: "AHHHHHH!!!"
That's only because they're designed with passivation to vent tanks and disconnect batteries to remove sources of explosion when they start to die. If that fails the tanks eventually pop from thermal cycling or the solar panels overcharge the battery until it blows up like a Russian satellite did earlier this year.
What, was it blowing a whistle?
Did the front fall off?
I guess space is technically out of the environment.
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Great, more bits of dangerous junk in orbit. The fuckers should have to clear up their mess before it fucks up other satellites.
This is actually a real problem more so in this case than most. There's an awful lot of satellites in low Earth orbit, altitude of a few hundred to several hundred kilometers. Atmospheric drag still exists here a little bit, and thus space junk will reenter and burn up in years or decades.
This satellite was in geostationary orbit, at an altitude of about 36,000 km. Debris up there can take hundreds of years to come down. Geostationary is a special altitude where the satellite orbits at exactly the same rate as the Earth spins. That means that a fixed dish on Earth will always point at the satellite without needing to move or track. So there's just one narrow orbital ring around the equator for that. That ring is not a place we want space junk to be, because if it gets too hazardous for satellites in GEO that basically removes our capability as a species to use fixed satellite dishes for anything. And that problem won't go away for centuries.
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...was designed and manufactured by Boeing Space Systems and launched in 2016. It provided broadband services, including internet and phone communication services, to parts of Europe, Africa, and most of Asia.
IS-33e was the second satellite to be launched as part of Boeing's "next generation" EpicNG platform. The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak. Intelsat declared the satellite a total loss in April 2019, later attributing it to either a micrometeoroid strike or solar weather activity.
What caused IS-33e to break up in orbit remains unclear, however. Intesalt officials did observe that it was using far more fuel than it should be to maintain its orbit shortly after launching eight years ago, shaving off 3.5 years of its 15-year lifetime.
Could be a coincidence, but I feel "Boeing leaks" approaching "Samsung exploding" levels of memification (where they had washers, phones and some other things all exploding, and the look was not great).
Samsung shook the meme off, but I feel like Boeing will have a harder time.
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This is slightly concerning. Satellites don't tend to explode on their own, but it is a Boeing design with a history of leaky propulsion, so who knows?
Sure it was a Comm satellite for the world's tensest area, which is about to go to bigger war.
who would have ASAT capability at GEO?
how could it be launched to GEO undetected?
If you’re a government, you can pretty much put anything in a rocket fairing and call it a reconnaissance satellite.
The only warning that actually has to be given is that a rocket is being launched, so you don’t accidentally trigger WW3 by setting off launch detection satellites without warning. After it’s in space, no one can really tell what was in the fairing. Could be a spy satellite, could be navigation. Could just be a box with a bunch of little rockets in it, designed to slam into whatever you want at ridiculous speed.
But it’s way more likely that this was just Boeing having a tiny leak in a propellant tank, or a bad thruster and as soon as the concentration of propellant and oxidizer got high enough, it triggered a detonation. They certainly have a history of not leak testing their shit: airplanes falling apart, space capsules with leaky thrusters, and now a blown up satellite point more towards incompetence than malice.
Is this a trick question? Cause you might as well be asking a 1600s peasant how to develop film.
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Another Unsafe Product, Brought To You By Boeing!
Wow, Boeing keeps finding new and interesting ways to be incompetent. They seriously need their entire C-suite replaced with engineering types.
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Boeing: outsources to an outsourcer who outsources to an outsourcer who outsources to an outsourcer who outsources to an outsourcer and so on and still has the shamelessness of appearing surprised at the shit quality and reliability they deliver
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IS-33e was the second satellite to be launched as part of Boeing's "next generation" EpicNG platform. The first, dubbed IS-29e, failed due to a propulsion system fuel leak. Intelsat declared the satellite a total loss in April 2019, later attributing it to either a micrometeoroid strike or solar weather activity.
What caused IS-33e to break up in orbit remains unclear, however. Intesalt officials did observe that it was using far more fuel than it should be to maintain its orbit shortly after launching eight years ago, shaving off 3.5 years of its 15-year lifetime.
Boeing produces more leaks than this guy:
I was on a Boeing plane the other day that was delayed while we watched a guy with a wrench and a rag trying to stop fuel leaking out of the wing. It wasn't hugely reassuring.
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I'm not really into the stock market, but I would not buy Boeing at the moment.
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That's gonna leave a mess.
Fortunately, Boeing is a responsible entity and will plan on cleaning it up... right?
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If it hadnt exploded into peices,what would it havr exploded into instead?
Your mom
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Rapid unscheduled disassembly.
Plus “Into pieces” is rather unnecessary there.
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🎶 It's not the best choice it's Spacers Choice!🎶
Was it a Satellite Max?
Satellite: "But I wasn't boing anything wrong!"
I'm honestly happy to see that it just had a fuel malfunction instead of the implication of an outside cause...
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So now this satellite can be an "anomaly" for another satellite, and the circle of life continues...
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