Satellite life

Captain Jack

Captain Jack

Retired human
My Satellite Setup
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North Somerset
Hi,

What determines a satellite's life time? I notice some relics such as Intelsat 701 launched back in 1993 is still alive at 180E with no inclination at all! Same goes for Intelsat 702 launched in 1994, which was at 1W back in its day and is now serving happily at 66E with no inclination.

Whereas some, such as Express A2 at 103E, launched in 2000 is already in inclined orbit with max inclination of 4.6 degrees....

Does Intelsat have some tricks up its sleeve?

CJ
 
Not taking into consideration catastrophic failure from impact, then the overiding factor is the amount of manouvering gas available on-board, once finished the sat is doomed
 
Can satellites be refueled or would that cost more than sending a new satellite up there?
 
It would probably cost more than they are worth to refuel them :eek:

The only sat i know of that has been captured repaired and then put back into orbit was Intelsat 603.

Code: 
http://www.techwatch.co.uk/forums/18145-intelsat-603-rescue.html

The link goes to a thread i started when i used to frequent the Techwtch forum :confused:

Nano
 
I think without the shuttle they would find it difficult to re-fuel a satellite, the only way I can forsee such an event taking place is if multiple satellites are done with one launch of a vehicle carrying the fuel for them all, otherwise I doubt it is viable. The other problem I would have thought is that electronics are making such advances that a 15 year old satellite is too outdated electronically to be worth bothering.
 
Channel Hopper said:
The shuttle could never reach the orbit of the communications satellites, even with Armageddon type, titanium design and refuelling (as Mir isn't up there anymore ;) )
Click to expand...

Never said it could, the proposed vehicle is still only on the drawing board

-http://www.space.com/8166-nasa-plans-refuel-mock-satellite-space-station.html
 
Topper said:
Never said it could, the proposed vehicle is still only on the drawing board
Click to expand...

Add yet one more to the drawing board in-box.

_http://www.georing.biz/HERMES/HERMES-07-06-04-Text-V1.0.pdf
 
What I meant in my original post was the gas will be difficult to get up there without the shuttle to take gas payloads to service whatever kind of vehicle is used, based upon the article you just posted it would seem that is not a problem as they intend a different approach
 
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