Russia Lost a $45 Million Satellite Because 'They Didn't Get the Coordinates Right' (gizmodo.com) 101
Last month, Russia lost contact with a 6,062-pound, $45 million satellite. Turns out, that happened because the Meteor-M weather satellite was programmed with the wrong coordinates. Gizmodo reports: On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told the Rossiya 24 state TV channel that a human error was responsible for the screw-up, according to Reuters. While the Meteor-M launched last month from the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East, it was reportedly programmed with take-off coordinates for the Baikonur cosmodrome, which is located in southern Kazakhstan. "The rocket was really programmed as if it was taking off from Baikonur," Rogozin said. "They didn't get the coordinates right." And the rocket had some precious cargo on board: "18 smaller satellites belonging to scientific, research and commercial companies from Russia, Norway, Sweden, the U.S., Japan, Canada and Germany," Reuters reported.
Re: (Score:1)
Why would the Klan love Russia? Why do you hate Russia?
The Klan loves Russia because it's white. The Rus were Viking.
Why do you hate Russia?
I don't hate Russia, but Putin can eat all the dicks.
Re: (Score:1)
You bring up an interesting point; when the Varangian Rus invaded Russia, the Varangians were Scandinavian, the native Russians were Slav. Well, the same things happened with the Vikings in England and the Normans in France; a Scandinavian Ruling Class evolved.
Russia is weird in a way; they want Warm Water Ports... well everybody wants those. But since the time of Peter the Great, they've wanted, as a National Policy, a ring of subservient Client States who will blunt the Next Invasion, because Russia, whet
Re: (Score:2)
As far as the KKK goes, they are just regular old American Morons. They would hate Russians too if they thought about it a bit, but they don't think much. It was from the word Slav that the word for their favorite Institution, Slavery, was derived.
Yeah, I've known a couple of more, uh, advanced skinheads who really hated everyone who wasn't a white Aryan, and who actually knew about the slav thing. Sadly, there's no shortage of well-educated racists, although they certainly aren't in the majority.
Re: (Score:2)
Strictly speaking, the Aryans are not white, and blonde hair is super rare amoung them. But we do not need to tell that KKK and Nazis.
Re: (Score:3)
There's nothing weird about Russia wanting warm water ports , of course, you wrote that. But there's nothing weird about Russia wanting a buffer of client states to blunt land assaults. Ballistic missiles being used would likely mean nuclear war, and that's a losing proposition for all sides. Land assaults can be done today, since they always relied upon political preparation and semi-surprise. So reestablishing the Warsaw Pact 'alliances' is very useful for Russia, and clearly NATO establishing relations a
Re: (Score:2)
The rus(sians) are not vikings.
The rus(sians) are slavic, the vikings are germanic (or teutonic as the english oddly call the germanic tribes).
And yes, if you look at it from a 'racial' point of view: they look completely different.
Re: (Score:2)
The rus(sians) are not vikings.
Eh, sort of. The founders and leaders of the Kievan Rus were Vikings.
Allegedly, the origin of Rus is in Roslagen (in Sweden) similarly to the word in Finnish Ruotsi for Sweden.
You would likely be able to unconfuse yourself, if you distinguished by Rus and Russians; also the ruling classes and the great unwashed masses.
The rus(sians) are slavic, the vikings are germanic (or teutonic as the english oddly call the germanic tribes).
The term Teutons goes back, at least, to Strabo.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course some cities in Russia are founded by Vikings ... that does not change the fact that Vikings/Germans and Russians/Slavic People are two different ethnic groups.
Cologne was found by Romans, but there mainly always only lived Germans/Teutons.
German is the correct name (but the english don't use it) for the group of teutonic tribes living in Germania (hence the name) ans Skandinavia.
The Teutons are just a single tribe, getting famous for attacking Rome. For some reason the english speaking historians
Re: (Score:3)
We don't hate Russia or the Russian People. However Putin's Russian authoritarian government we have problems with. Being that he used his power to spam social media to Polarize Americans, by taking our political differences and putting a wedge between them. Creating protests and counter protests not to push an agenda of the protest, but to push Americans into instability.
If you find yourself hating Liberals, or Hating Conservatives much more today then you did last year, then chances are you were influen
Re:So what (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
US Trident II missiles do all their targeting in coordinates of new groats per old hogshead per mile per fortnight squared. This ensures that only US personnel can program them.
Re: (Score:2)
... or British people over the age of 80.
Re: (Score:3)
This is probably the reason the UK is the only export customer for Trident II, despite valiant attempts by Lockheed Martin to find more.
Re: (Score:2)
Depending on the price tag, I would buy one or two.
Or take them as gifts!
I like fireworks!
Old news (Score:1)
caus everyone likes old news
Customer Service (Score:3)
I'm wondering, if you pay Russia to launch a satellite for you and they fuck it up, do you get a refund? I hope those countries kept their receipts.
Re: Customer Service (Score:1, Interesting)
Perhaps they should stop launching satellites that pollute space with junk. Businesses should be prohibited from launching new satellites, unless they're safely deorbiting an existing one at the same time.
Re: Customer Service (Score:4, Informative)
Which satellites, exactly, get anywhere near a LaGrange point? Nothing in orbit, that's for sure.
I ask because it sounds like you're throwing out "space" words without knowing what they mean.
The nearest LaGrange points are very very far from satellites. Geosynchronous satellites are ~35,000 km (the highest orbit we really use), compared to the L4/L5 LaGrange points at ~380,000 km. Nothing is going to just drift over there. Anything in Earth orbit is either staying there for a long time or burning up on its way down.
Re: (Score:2)
Low orbit cleans itself up by atmospheric drag. There just isn't that much stuff in other orbits to worry about collision hazards. Further, it's not feasible to deorbit dead satellites out of geostationary orbits, but that's OK because there aren't many satellites there to start with, and won't be for a very very long time.
Cut back on the socialism for a second to examine the facts and you'll breathe easier.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps they should stop launching satellites that pollute space with junk. Businesses should be prohibited from launching new satellites, unless they're safely deorbiting an existing one at the same time.
I bet you think it's long way down the road to the chemist's, too.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If this is anything similar to SpaceX, you get to choose from: a large refund for a new flight or a new flight. a new flight is usually scheduled a lot sooner than buying a new flight later, but a refund is nice when you can't afford a new satellite. The satellite itself (usually a lot more expensive than the launch cost) is not refunded, you have to ensure that yourself. It's usually insured separately for everything until engine ignition (transport, integration onto the rocket, etc.), everything between e
Re: (Score:3)
Given the extremely limited number of countries/companies offering launch services, I doubt any of them give you a refund if a launch fails.
Re:Customer Service (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the extremely limited number of countries/companies offering launch services, I doubt any of them give you a refund if a launch fails.
The launch providers are still penalised for failure, even if their contract has no financial penalty. The insurance rates are set according to risk and every failure makes a provider seem riskier. This means that failures make providers less competitive in the market.
Re:Customer Service (Score:5, Interesting)
Some companies have started so small that they couldn't afford insurance, they just bet all on the launch succeeding. Have a look at the early history of SES [wikipedia.org] - their very first satellite, Astra 1A [wikipedia.org], went up without insurance. Had the Ariane rocket exploded, nobody would be talking about SES, and chances are sat TV would have developed quite differently.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahh, the magic of the limited liability corporation...
Re: (Score:2)
Satellite Insurance is commonly used. [wikipedia.org] Having a launch failure pay for the payload is very unusual. Maybe the launch contract should have a "really stupid mistake" clause wherein they pay for the satellite (or else the insurance premium) if it the accident is not due to an unavoidable hardware failure.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about Russian law, but under U.S. law, the insurance company would pay the insured, and would subsequently go after the responsible party (in court, if necessary) to recover its losses (assuming that the gross negligence can be adequately proven).
45 million? that's cheap. (Score:2)
Elon Musk probably makes that much in tesla stock from every snarky tweet. 45 million is less than insuring many ships or buildings. it's nothing.
someone's going to Siberia? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. But they got the coordinates [google.com] wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Shouldn't you be golfing, Mr. President?
Re: (Score:2)
Not a problem (Score:1)
We can download and 3D print a new one, and use VR-augmented AI algorithms to crowdfund a IoT into orbit with private space colonies using fusion reactors!
Technology!
Re: Not a problem (Score:1)
You forgot to mention it is all financed by bitcoins and of course implemented in the cloud!
Re: (Score:1)
Re:GPS maybe? (Score:5, Informative)
From what I can find the GPS system doesn't work nearly as well in space - especially if you're above the GPS orbits. Might be serviceable in low orbit, but why bother with all the potential failure modes when you already know exactly where it starts from. You did double-check that before the launch, right?
Problem one is that the GPS satellites tight-beam their signals at the Earth to avoid wasting energy - picture a cone roughly twice as tall as it is wide, with the Earth's cross-section filling it's base, and a GPS satellite at it's tip. That's the space containing the signal, and there's going to be an awful lot of space between those cones as you gain altitude. Though there is typically a bit of "overshoot" around the edges as well, so things aren't as bad as they might be.
Problem two is that the faster you're moving the harder it is to lock on to the signal - think of how much longer it takes for a recently powered-off GPS device to establish its location while driving down the highway versus when you're parked. And then figure LEO orbital speed is about 17,450mph. No doubt it could still be done - but might be expensive and/or unreliable.
Re:GPS maybe? (Score:5, Informative)
Civilian GPS equipment is actually designed to cut out above a certain velocity and altitude. Generally the velocities and altitudes involved in weapons delivery applications. This is, of course, designed to prevent somebody building an ultra cheap Balistic Missile guided by GPS OR an ultra fast rocket propelled missile guided by GPS. Go too fast OR too high and your guidance goes from accurate to estimate to guesstimate to "ooh, look at the flowers"
Re:GPS maybe? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, your parent is either misinformed or spreading false information intetionally.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is nonsense ...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You might be correct. For suborbital applications I suppose it would probably be fine, provided speed wasn't a problem - and quality hardware should be anle to deal with that. It's when you get higher, into the dead zones, that you'd start having issues. Though I guess they've been working on using it even in orbits above the GPS satellites themselves, presumably using only the "overspray" from the satellites on the other side of the Earth... since 2002 apparently.
Mea culpa.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, that's exactly what didn't happen. So $50 worth of GPS hardware would have prevented the loss of a ~$95 million-dollar launch ($45M for the satellite, ~$50M for the launch costs), because the
At least we don't do this... (Score:5, Informative)
These kinds of errors are not just related to Russia.
Mars Climate Orbiter probe lost due to Math error:
English to Metric math conversion error
https://edition.cnn.com/TECH/s... [cnn.com]
https://mars.nasa.gov/msp98/ne... [nasa.gov]
http://articles.latimes.com/19... [latimes.com]
ExoMars Schiaparelli lander crashed due to failure to recognize the proper height.
http://spaceflight101.com/exom... [spaceflight101.com]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/b... [forbes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:At least we don't do this... (Score:4, Informative)
You mean "Imperial" and not "English" measurements. People from England (UK) use Metric measurements except were tradition, and government rules dictate Imperial measurements are used. For example, distances for transport are in miles but fuel is measured in litres. When shopping, products are labelled in imperial and metric measurements but imperial only selling is possible in traditional street markets.
Note that the US uses a different set of imperial definitions to the UK due to the US War of Independence causing the US to fail to get subsequent updates to the UK's Parliament's Act of Weights and Measures. This caused the US gallon to be a different size to the UK's imperial gallon.
Re: (Score:2)
No, he/she/it probably meant "English", since what is used in the USA isn't what was used in the UK pre-metric - the two systems started the same two centuries ago, but have diverged a bit since.....
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a case of diverging, it's more that national standards were only set down after the miserable puritan buggers had sailed off in a huff - hence a Norfolk gallon might be different to a Yorkshire one.
Re: (Score:2)
What a bunch of idiots. It's not like this is rocket science.
One Satellite or 18? Or 19? (Score:2)
The headline suggests one satellite worth $45 Million was lost, while the summary suggests it was 18 small satellites. Was there a $45 Million satellite in addition to those 18 mini satellites? Or was it $45 Million total between the 18 of them?
The article says '18 satellites [...] were on the same rocket' so I'm guessing there were 19, one of which was worth ~$45 Million.
No, no, no... NO! (Score:5, Informative)
Have a read of the story, that is WRONG AS WRITTEN.
> While the Meteor-M launched last month from the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East, it was reportedly programmed with take-off coordinates for the Baikonur cosmodrome, which is located in southern Kazakhstan.
No, no, no... NO! The word "it" refers to the Meteor-M satellite. The satellite was NOT programmed incorrectly; it was the launcher that was mis-programmed, as the following sentence clarifies.
> "The rocket was really programmed as if it was taking off from Baikonur," ....
Re: (Score:2)
The satellite was NOT programmed incorrectly; it was the launcher that was mis-programmed,
As I wrote below, even that is apparently not accurate, unless by mis-programmed you mean there's a bug in the control system. (But in this context, I assume that "programming" refers to correct data input.)
Fake news? (Score:5, Informative)
In the Soyuz/Fregat launch vehicle, the first three booster stages of the rocket and the Fregat upper stage have their two separate guidance systems controlled by their own gyroscopic platforms. The guidance reference axis used by the gyroscopes on the Soyuz and on the Fregat had a 10-degree difference. The angle of a roll maneuver for rockets lifting off from Baikonur, Plesetsk and Kourou, which was required to guide them into a correct azimuth of ascent, normally laid within a range from positive 140 to negative 140 degrees. To bring the gyroscopic guidance system into a position matching the azimuth of the launch, its main platform has to be rotated into a zero-degree position via a shortest possible route. The ill-fated launch from Vostochny required a roll maneuver of around 174 degrees (which was apparently conducted from the 5th to 22nd second of the flight), and with an additional 10 degrees for the Fregat's reference axis, it meant that its gyro platform had to turn around 184 degrees in order to reach the required "zero" position.
In the Soyuz rocket, the gyro platform normally rotated from 174 degrees back to a zero position, providing the correct guidance. However on the Fregat, the shortest path for its platform to a zero-degree position was to increase its angle from 184 to 360 degrees. Essentially, the platform came to the same position, but this is not how the software in the main flight control computer on the Fregat interpreted the situation. Instead, the computer decided that the spacecraft had been 360 degrees off target and dutifully commanded its thrusters to fire to turn it around to the required zero-degree position. After the nearly 60-degree turn at a rate of around one degree per second, the Fregat began a preprogrammed trajectory correction maneuver with its main engine. Unfortunately, the spacecraft was in a wrong attitude and, as a result, the engine was fired in a wrong direction.
Nothing about the vehicle or the satellite being "programmed with the wrong coordinates", just an edge case for the control system (a little bit like with the Ariane 5 incident).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
However they launched from a far east site, with 184 reference angle, the software was not programmed to work for that reference angle and so it flipped all the way over. 190,200,210...
Also, it's not "a reference angle", it's the launch azimuth (plus the Fregat correction) and thus it's independent on the longitude (it doesn't matter that it's "far east" because the Earth is round, it's only a function of the orbital plane inclination and the cosine of the latitude), and it's not that it "was not programmed to work for that reference angle ", it simply had a bug. And the bug was not that it continued rotating the platform, that was the correct thing to do. The problem was manifested after
Crowd Source for Help (Score:1)
Another successful op (Score:1)
Bygones.