Solar Storm Turns Communication Satellite to an Out-of-Control 'Zombiesat'

zombiesat eats your brainz from space

Hacker attack?

You know, call me ridiculous, but I think that everything we ship off into space needs to be recuperated in some way or another, because despite the seemingly infinitely insignificant effect a little satellite's weight has on the earth, if we keep sending more and more things off into space for the next 5000 years we could end up altering our orbit. I know it sounds far fetched, but it's the kind of thing we'll have to consider if we ever start having serious space trafic/resource gathering from other planets, maintaining the earth's weight will be a tricky thing.

The sun is stealing our satellites for some evil purpose

@phiniusmaster

I've been pondering the same thing. Hmm...

I doubt the relative minuscule weight of satellites and things will significantly enough lower the mass of the earth to the point it alters the orbit. I'm more concerned about us sending out into space valuable materials which we can never retrieve again. All that silicon and perhaps various types of rare-earth elements just wasted.

@ the above comments in 5000 years the wieght we send out will not matter because we will hopefully be recieving goods from other extraterrestial sources.

Simple explanation the radiation and emp pulses from the storm fried the the satellite's ability to communicate with home base but it still had it's primary commands so it continued on it's normal course.

I got to admit some of yous are just weirdos get a grip okay face reality not fantasy

No problem! We'll just send the shuttle up to retrieve it sometime. Huh? Oh... Never mind!

the antenna used for communications with earth probably wasnt heavily shielded, and it got fried like blindinglight said.
\i would go up there and be an orbital garbageman. somebody has to do it, and just think of all the cool stuff you would be collecting up there, instead of letting it get smashed in space or vaporized on its fall to earth.
then i would hack them all together and make the first WifiSat. of course i would bring a wireless router from earth but it would have scavenged solar cells, batteries, antenna, etc. but of course it would be useless for now. i didnt initially think of this, but wireless routers get their internet from the ethernet cable..
what i meant though, was like a signal repeater, and earth beams the internet up, it goes through the repeater satellites to the astronauts, then back through repeaters and down to the earth station.
that would still have terrible ping wouldnt it?

oh yeah...i can hear obama now..what? we need the shuttle to do what? help control the debris up in near/low earth orbit? ..no i dont think so..lets send anothe robot to mars..or the moon..that way we dont have to send humans into space..so much better dont you think?

such short sightedness and stupidity, and yes..we need to have a way to bring these things back down instead of just letting them collect up there as junk

Why is anyone referencing the shuttle program in the comments here? Perhaps the article didn't make it clear, but AMC15 is in geostationary orbit, which is 22,000 miles high. The shuttle, and all other Low Earth Orbit (LEO) spacecraft, operate in the range of 400-900 miles high. The shuttle program has never flown anywhere near that far from earth, nor any other manned flights since the moon missions. It is not qualified to leave LEO.

Additionally, there is nothing (no atmospheric drag) to decay the orbit in GEO like there is for LEO spacecraft, so AMC15 will in fact remain at its Lagrange point. All GEO spacecraft, when they reach the end of their service life, are sent about 300 miles higher than GEO, known as a parking orbit or graveyard orbit - where no interference can occur. With no ability to command AMC15, it will not get out there.