Boeing isn't having an easy year with the failure of the Starliner crew transport earlier this year and now the sudden and unexpected spontaneous destruction of the Intelsat-33e communications platform, leading to a mess of at least twenty new space debris items on tracking.
The satellite, designed as a geostationary communications platform, had suffered problems with the propulsion system since entering orbit in late August 2016, leading to three and a half years reduction in lifespan on the estimated fifteen-year mission length. The satellite was part of the Intelsat Epic high throughput satellite (HTS) series based on the 702MP satellite bus.
This falls hot-on-the-heels of propulsion system issues on Starliner and the loss of Intelsat-29e in 2019 caused by "either meteoroid impact or a wiring flaw in conjunction with an electrostatic event related to solar weather activity".
Space engineering is not easy, despite what the media would have us believe. We have come to expect a consistent success rate with only minor incidents, but the recent troubles with Boeing equipment could signal issues with the design and testing internally.
The fallout of additional debris has led to increased pressure on those operating equipment in space to clean-up and decomission equipment. The European Space Agency estimates around thirteen thousand tonnes of space objects orbiting Earth with around one hundred and thirty million debris items smaller than one centimeter and more than forty thousand larger than ten centimeters. This poses a huge problem for other spacecraft and risks further collisions, generating more debris.
2024 has seen a range of breakup and collision events highlighting the ever-increasing problem to orbital operations - with so many newsworthy events happening in one year, the pressure on the industry is only set to grow.
We can but hope that the problems at Boeing resolve and their flight hardware provides strong and solid competition to other vendors to ensure the healthy progress towards a more efficient and robust future of space flight.
Keywords: Space Boeing Satellite Debris Intelsat Communications