World News @lemmy.world jeffw @lemmy.world 5 days ago

Two of the German military’s new spy satellites appear to have failed in orbit

arstechnica.com Two of the German military’s new spy satellites appear to have failed in orbit

Did OHB really not test the satellite antennas on the ground?

10 comments

Exactly what a spy satellite would say.

Trust No One.
It sounds like it does radar and that it's the radar antennas at issue, and there's some separate antenna that they can use to communicate.

Also, a previous satellite of the same design that was manufactured by Airbus worked. So they know the likely system and that it's a manufacturing problem. They don't need to design a replacement from scratch, just manufacture it. They have one satellite up. And while their older satellites in the previous constellation are past their design life and aren't as good, they're apparently still functioning, and hopefully will for several years.

So it doesn't sound that bad.
- The only thing that sounds wild in the article is that the manufacturer supposedly didn't test the antennae's unfolding mechanism on the ground. Did they think they could just send a technician if something won't work lmao
  
  Systems like that can easily be difficult or impossible to test on the ground, because they aren't strong enough to work under gravity. They might need to be in free-fall to survive being deployed
Betcha one of them is actually working just fine.
Good. The world need less spy satellites, not more. Especially now that the fourth reich is on the rise
- The fourth Reich is rising in the states, if anything.
  
  The world is experiencing it. Germany, France, the states, Italy. They alle have the same problem: The rise of fascism.
  
  Germany is experiencing a rise in the far right too, though it hasn't yet gone as far as in France.

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