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back to article Rogue TV satellite brought to heel after auto reboot

Intelsat bird Galaxy 15 is responding to commands again, having exhausted its batteries over eight months of uncontrolled broadcasting, thus forcing an automatic reboot. The satellite rebooted on 23 December, and started transmitting its telemetry. Engineers from Intelsat picked that up and were able to get the rogue satellite …

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  1. Matthew 25
    Headmaster

    Prescient

    " but in April this year "

    Either you are prescient or just a little behind the times.

    6 0
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Chalk up another victory

    to switching it off and on again

    31 0
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Safe mode?

    Did they send somebody up there to press F8?

    3 0
    1. Farai
      Reply Icon
      Alien

      RE: Safe mode?

      Err.. i think you'll find in this case it was "Space + F8".....

      Oh yeah, let THAT one sink in.. oh yeah.. oooohh yeeeaaaahhh

      17 0
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      I used to work for someone...

      ....that we joked would be ideally suited to performing field service on geostationary satellites ;-)

      0 0
      1. prathlev
        Reply Icon
        Big Brother

        @Brian

        Yeah, that actually made me a little sad inside every time you said it.

        0 0
    3. Annihilator
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Worse

      It rebooted and...

      "Keyboard not found... press F1 to continue"

      1 0
  4. Sureo

    Safe Mode...

    Yes they have a mouse brain on life support to use as a last resort failsafe.

    0 0
    1. ~mico
      Reply Icon
      Coffee/keyboard

      but...

      You can't enter Safe mode with only a mouse. You need keyboard.

      1 0
    2. Christoph
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      Old news

      Cordwainer Smith did the last-resort preserved mouse brain years ago (in "Think Blue, Count Two").

      1 0
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not quite accurate...

    Actually, the batteries weren't exhausted by "eight months of uncontrolled broadcasting," they were exhausted due to the solar cells no longer being pointed at the sun, due to saturation of the satellites "momentum wheels" which serve to keep the satellite from wobbling or tumbling.

    0 0
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Burning question

    Did it BSOD before the forced reboot?

    0 0
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Huh?

    If the batteries were dead and the solar panels weren't aligned (which caused the batteries discharge), where did it get the power to reboot?

    1 0
    1. Nuno
      Reply Icon

      even a broken watch

      get's the time right, 2 times a day...

      0 0
  8. Spotfist
    Badgers

    Phew...

    We should just all be glad it wasn't a GDI Ion Cannon!

    BOOM, BOOM!

    0 0
    1. K. Adams
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Wrong orbit...

      Ion cannons aren't parked in geosync orbit; beam divergence would kill their effectiveness at that distance (the whole inverse-square law gets in the way).

      Hence the name, "Low Orbit Ion Cannon."

      ;-)

      2 0
  9. Al Jones

    Dead Man Switch

    Maybe they should change the programming so that it will do an automatic reboot once a week unless it receives a command telling it not to, instead of waiting until the batteries run down.

    1 1
    1. The Real XYZ
      Reply Icon
      Flame

      And reboot during...

      ... the programme time slot for all of the crap that is on satillite tv nowadays!

      1 0
      1. Jess--
        Reply Icon

        The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

        I think Al meant that if the sat was working properly the signal telling it not to reboot would be sent

        if its messed up and not responding then it would not receive the signal telling it not to reboot and would then reboot itself without having to wait for the batteries to die

        1 0
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Black Helicopters

      ugh,,,

      Automatic re-boots... right in the middle of watching a TV program...

      I imagine the boot up sequence of a satellite is a little more complex than rebooting your pc, and would probably take more time than a add break in the middle of corrie....

      If it was me setting up the system, I think I would set up some sort of failsafe system, not attached to the rest of the systems that can remotely force a re-boot (switch it off then on again) via some sort of loop antenna for receiving the signal so no matter what its orientation it can receive said signal

      Just for giggles call it the DBS (David Bowman Switch)

      black chopper because can you really trust all those satellites up there watching us?

      0 1
      1. Uplink
        Reply Icon
        Pint

        Satellite boot sequence

        Satellite boot sequence on telly? Now this is something I'd watch! And record, and rewatch, and wait for the sequel.

        1 0
  10. Dave 32
    FAIL

    Reruns

    Maybe mankind should take this as a hint that the aliens are tired of those endless reruns of "I Love Lucy" and are wanting some better programming. But, will we take the hint?

    3 0
  11. Winkypop Silver badge
    Joke

    Used satellites for sale

    Low orbits

    Solar powered

    Re-bootable software

    Free satellite TV

    Buyer must arrange collection.

    1 1
  12. Glenn Charles

    kinda like a burnt out reporter?

    "Just haveta reboot, hun."

    0 0
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