Telstar 4 is Down

An anonymous reader writes "Sometime this morning (Sept. 19) Telstar 4 had a major onboard failure. I just checked a few minutes ago and there are CW carriers up on 11700 MHz V & 12200 MHz H, so the spacecraft would appear to still be in its orbital slot - just no traffic. The Loral Skynet site has no mention of this yet, but supposedly Telstar 8 was already scheduled to replace T4, so they may just speed the process up. This turn of events will no doubt be of some small concern to Intelsat, who recently agreed to purchase most of Loral's US domestic fleet, including T4."

For all those whiners...

[jonman_d]

For all of you who keep asking, "What is telstar?" - here's the results of a Google:

http://roland.lerc.nasa.gov/~dglover/sat/telstar.h tml [nasa.gov]

Re:Effect ?

[afidel]

The last time a Telstar satelite went out of alignment about 3/4ths of the credit card processing in the US went offline. Many banks and gas stations relay their CC processing through transpoders on one of the Telstar satelites instead of dedicating a phone line on each end of the connection. It looks like T-4 is used by ABC and CBS for network programming. See This [loralskynet.com] for more info.

Re:Effect ?

[bhtooefr]

But what does Telstar DO? I mean, what are the downlink transmissions that you would try to receive? I've heard that it's famous for porn, and I know PBS uses Telstars (including 4) for broadcasting, but what else is there?

Good old Loral

[segment]

Maybe they went out of business... they've been know for criminal activities...

From the New York Times, May 19, 1998

[FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, MAY 19, 1998]

Satellite Maker Gave Report to China Before Telling U.S.

(By Jeff Gerth)

Washington: A leading American satellite maker acknowledged for the first time Monday that a committee headed by one of its top executives provided a report in 1996 to the Chinese on a failed Chinese rocket, without first consulting federal officials, and contrary to the company's own internal policies.

But the company, Space Systems/Loral, a subsidiary of Loral Space and Communications, based in Manhattan, said it `does not believe any of its employees dealing with China acted illegally or damaged U.S. national security.' The company issued a two-page statement, which it called a `fact sheet.'

In the statement, Loral said it was cooperating with the Justice Department, which is investigating whether sensitive technological information was passed to the Chinese during industry reviews of an accidental explosion of a Chinese rocket seconds after liftoff in February 1996.

FAS [fas.org]

CHICAGO, June 30 (Reuters) - Loral Space & Communications Ltd., which makes and operates satellites, on Monday said it will pay rival Alcatel $13 million in a settlement that resolves all outstanding issues between them, including a contract dispute.

WebProWire [webprowire.com]

Skynet site hacked?

[phil reed]

Take a look at their "Industry Terms" page = http://www.loralskynet.com/tech_resources/glos_us. asp.html

What's up with the first entry? Also, there's an entry for "hacker".

The Story

[Enraged_jawa]

Telstar 401 out of serviceJanuary 17, 1997: 1:01 p.m. ET Satellite's failure could cost AT&T several hundred million dollars NEW YORK (CNNfn) -- AT&T said on Friday that it has been unsuccessful in its attempts to re-establish contact with Telstar 401 and has declared the satellite permanently out of service. The satellite's telemetry and communications abruptly stopped early Saturday morning, the company said. The satellite, which began malfunctioning last weekend, was used to transmit network TV programs. The problem has been invisible to TV viewers because AT&T said it immediately restored service for customers whose contracts called for transfer of their transponder service to Telstar 402R, and restored other services as well. In addition to traffic from ABC and other networks, the satellite carried signals from syndicators, resellers and educational networks. An AT&T spokesman said this is the first time AT&T has ever seen a satellite broadcast successfully and then fail completely. On September 25, 1996, AT&T agreed to sell AT&T Skynet Satellite Services to Loral Space & Communications. Skynet consisted of three satellites, one of them more than ten years old. The loss of Telstar 401 significantly reduces the value of Skynet and could cost AT&T several hundred million dollars. Telstar was launched in late 1993 and started serving customers early in 1994. It is highly unusual for a satellite to fail so quickly. The satellite was manufactured by Lockheed Martin. Find this article at: http://money.cnn.com/1997/01/17/technology/att

memories of a job i'm glad i don't have anymore

[entartete]

I used to work for an npr station doing operations stuff, mostly catching shows off network and recording them for rebroadcast and I remember the time that their satellite had problems. actually i don't remember it, that whole time period was this haze of me not sleeping and freaking out about how we were going to get our programing and people calling in to scream at us so it was all sort of a blur. npr switched over to useing some sattelite that canadian broadcasting had space on, since we had helped them out in the past when things went wrong with their network they didn't charge us an arm and a leg. the tv networks that had to switch over had to cough up the real money though.

T4 dies

[CheapEngineer]

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/09-19-2003/0002020695&EDA TE=

NEW YORK, Sept. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Loral Skynet, a subsidiary of
Loral Space & Communications (OTC Bulletin Board: LRLSQ), today said that its
Telstar 4 satellite experienced a short circuit of its primary power bus today
at 8:56 am EDT, causing the satellite to cease operations. Loral Skynet
immediately made capacity available to most Telstar 4 customers, many of whom
have already had their services restored on Loral's Telstar 5 and Telstar 6
satellites.
Loral Skynet and Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the satellite, are
working to determine the cause of the problem and to restore service on the
satellite, if possible. The satellite is insured for $141 million.
Telstar 8, currently under construction at Space Systems/Loral, will
replace Telstar 4, as planned, at 89 degrees West in mid-2004.
Telstar 4 coverage includes the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto
Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and southern Canada. Telstar 4 was launched in
September 1995.

(Where I work, T4 is backup for CBS, and has several data channels for our Weather Graphics System - that required a retune to T5. BTW, there is *always* a "backup/replacement" satellite in the pipeline to replace existing satellites)