Tampa, Florida – Intelsat said Aug. 19 that it lost control of its Galaxy 15 broadcasting satellite after it was likely hit by a geomagnetic storm.
Intelsat said the high activity of space weather likely hampered the onboard electronics needed to communicate with the satellite, keeping it locked into the slot of its geostationary orbit at 133 degrees West.
“The satellite is operating nominally, maintaining ground orientation with all nominal payload operations,” said Melissa Longo, an Intelsat spokeswoman.
As Intelsat works to restore its satellite command capability, Longo said the company expects all customers to have “continuity of service” until the arrival of a Galaxy 33 replacement in November.
Intelsat ordered the Galaxy 33 from Northrop Grumman in 2020, and SpaceX is scheduled to launch the satellite with the Galaxy 34 on the Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in October.
The Galaxy 15 was launched in 2005 and was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, which is now part of Northrop Grumman.
Intelsat temporarily lost the ability to drive the Galaxy 15 five years after launch after an anomaly that was also installed Unusually violent solar activity.
Longo said Intelsat is offloading customers to another satellite “to ensure continuity of service”, and “will continue to attempt to restore command once it is turned off until we can eventually dismantle it.”
The Galaxy 15 carries 24 C-band transceivers serving North American media customers.
It also has an L-band payload that was previously used by the US Federal Aviation Administration to transmit GPS information to aircraft to improve navigation accuracy. Intelsat said the L-band payload is no longer in use after FAA service moved to the Galaxy 30 shortly after that satellite was launched in 2020.
Tzu-Wei Fang, a space scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), warned Aug. 8 that the relatively mild space weather conditions of the past several years are over.
A new solar activity cycle is set to peak around the middle of the decade May be stronger than expectedtold the 36th Small Satellite Conference in Logan, Utah.
This article was updated on August 20th with details about the Galaxy 15’s L-band payload which is no longer in use.