ZombieSat lassoed and corraled

Errant Galaxy 15 comsat has been reined in after going loco
during a solar storm. Its batteries finally ran down, forcing
control systems to reset, after which ground controllers were
able to regain control. It's hoped any remaining problems
are capable of being worked around so the satellite can be
reassigned to its proper duties.

http://www.universetoday.com/81993/z...under-control/

--Damon, git along lil' sputnik...yeehah!

On 12/28/2010 5:20 PM, Damon Hill wrote:
Errant Galaxy 15 comsat has been reined in after going loco
during a solar storm. Its batteries finally ran down, forcing
control systems to reset, after which ground controllers were
able to regain control. It's hoped any remaining problems
are capable of being worked around so the satellite can be
reassigned to its proper duties.

http://www.universetoday.com/81993/z...under-control/

It's good to see that happen, but do they know if the storm resulted in
any permanent damage to it that could cause it to go out of control again?

Pat

In article
tatelephone,
says...

On 12/28/2010 5:20 PM, Damon Hill wrote:
Errant Galaxy 15 comsat has been reined in after going loco
during a solar storm. Its batteries finally ran down, forcing
control systems to reset, after which ground controllers were
able to regain control. It's hoped any remaining problems
are capable of being worked around so the satellite can be
reassigned to its proper duties.

http://www.universetoday.com/81993/z...under-control/

It's good to see that happen, but do they know if the storm resulted in
any permanent damage to it that could cause it to go out of control again?

Based on the article, I'd say they don't yet know for sure. The article
says that Intelsat will, "conduct extensive in-orbit testing to
determine the functionality of every aspect of the spacecraft".

I'm sure they're hoping that the storm just caused "bit flips" due to
the radiation from the storm and that no permanent damage was done.

Jeff
--
42

Jeff Findley wrote:

I'm sure they're hoping that the storm just caused "bit flips" due to
the radiation from the storm and that no permanent damage was done.

I'm hoping they'll study this long and hard and publish their
conclusions.

Any autonomous embedded software system *should* have at least
one "watchdog" system on-board. Having to wait for a battery
to drain isn't a particularly good one.

speculation
I'd imagine a very simple and highly rad-hardened microprocessor
that would do a simple query and response with mission control
on a regular basis, via the main communication systems. E.g.
using modulo 10 arithmetic because I'm lazy:
Sat to ground: "3 + 5 = ?"
Ground to sat: "8 + 4 = ?"
Sat to ground: "2 + 3 = ?"
Ground to sat: "5 + 2 = ?"
And you could have two of these querying each other as well as
ground.
/