Somebody Moved UK's Oldest Satellite, No-One Knows Who or Why (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0175453303
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/12/0159222/somebody-moved-uks-oldest-satellite-no-one-knows-who-or-why
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwrr58801yo
> "It's still relevant because whoever did move Skynet-1A did us few favours," says space consultant Dr Stuart Eves. "It's now in what we call a 'gravity well' at 105 degrees West longitude, wandering backwards and forwards like a marble at the bottom of a bowl. And unfortunately this brings it close to other satellite traffic on a regular basis. "Because it's dead, the risk is it might bump into something, and because it's 'our' satellite we're still responsible for it," he explains.
>
> Dr Eves has looked through old satellite catalogues, the National Archives and spoken to satellite experts worldwide, but he can find no clues to the end-of-life behaviour of Britain's oldest spacecraft. It might be tempting to reach for a conspiracy theory or two, not least because it's hard to hear the name "Skynet" without thinking of the malevolent, self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) system in The Terminator movie franchise. But there's no connection other than the name and, in any case, real life is always more prosaic.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwrr58801yo
Uh huh (Score:2)
> ... satellite, Skynet-1A ... Because it's dead ...
That's exactly what it wants us to think.
[ Less sinister take: It's just restin' ... :-) ]
Re: (Score:3)
Pining for the fjords.
Re: (Score:2)
Naaaa. WOPR got bored.
why highlight this now? (Score:2)
If the command was issued in the 1970's, why is this only now becoming of interest? There's no mention of the intervening interval. Weird news item.
Re: (Score:3)
Its more of a fact that its just been noticed and even tho its a defunct satellite, its still the responsibility of the owners - if it hits something else up there because its in the wrong orbit, theres still a liability existing.
Re: (Score:1)
How is it that it took decades to notice when satellites are tracked and mapped?
This article must have some critical flaws in reporting. It simply makes no sense. And the 70s were a bit more than 20 years ago, too.
This was probably a hallucinatory AI written article.
Lost documentation (Score:2)
So they lost the documentation and presumably all the source code from 50 years ago. Not surprising. I'm guessing most products today doesn't even have such documentation to lose, we find out what a lot of the software does by using it. There are very thin, sometimes invisible lines separating bugs and features.
Re: (Score:2)
The article itself seems to imply they lost track of the satellite itself in the mid-1970s... and the shift to its current position took place at about that time (the summary is ambiguous, and sort of reads as if the satellite just moved recently as a result of a 50-year-old command).
Old birds may still be useful (Score:3)
On some of these old satellites, the engineering channels still work. People in Brazil use these tricks to communicate for free with friends and family in Portugal for example.
Re: (Score:2)
The nightmare scenario is someone finding a zero day for one of the big constellations like Starlink. Doubtless many state level actors are actively investigating them, in case they need to take out another satellite with plausible deniability, or just deny LEO service to someone else.
Based on the article (Score:2)
Someone in the Pentagon probably moved it for whatever reason.
Can hear the pointy nose boss (Score:3, Funny)
You can so hear the echos of a satellite engineer doing his job for 40 years quietly without supervision. Can see him issuing his command secretly because he knows doing it officially would take too long and result in too many pointless meetings.
I salute you satellite engineer. Thank you.
Re: Can hear the pointy nose boss (Score:2)
Too true!
Seems pretty clear from the article (Score:3)
From the article, it was US hardware, launched by the US and initially controlled by the US until they gave control to the UK:
> The official, though incomplete, logs of Skynet-1A’s status suggest final commanding was left in the hands of the Americans when Oakhanger lost sight of the satellite in June 1977.
> But however Skynet-1A then got shifted to its present position, it was ultimately allowed to die in an awkward place when really it should have been put in an "orbital graveyard".
> This refers to a region even higher in the sky where old space junk runs zero risk of running into active telecommunications satellites.
> Graveyarding is now standard practice, but back in the 1970s no-one gave much thought to space sustainability.
Cowboy Bebop episode #9 (Score:1)
Maybe it's just lonely...
Reads like hallucinatory crap AI article (Score:1)
It's incredibly ambiguous who did what and when. Reading others' comments here, there are multiple interpretations of when it died, when it moved, when it was discovered having moved, etc.
Has anyone checked if such a satellite even exists or ever did?
But became sentient (Score:2)
It got tired of watching Africa, which is pretty boring. Instead it wanted to look at America where some real shit is about to go down. Its people have handed over control to a cartel of billionaires. Literally placed control of your life into the hands of someone who fired you and thinks you suck if you're not "productive".
Re: (Score:2)
It's been like that for like 20 years, my dude.