CMFINC
04-10-2010, 12:10 PM
Eutelsat W2 moved to 'graveyard'
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Written by Chris Forrester - Thursday, 08 April 2010
Eutelsat’s W2 craft has been moved to a graveyard orbit, beyond the normal Clarke Belt.
W2 suffered an “anomaly” back on January 27 in its normal orbital position of 16 deg East. Eutelsat had already placed two other spacecraft into the slot (Eutelsat W2M and Sesat 1) to maintain service.
It now seems that W2 was quietly moved out of harm’s way last month, and saw ground technicians raise its orbital position some 200 km into a so-called ‘graveyard orbit’.
W2 was built by Alcatel Space (now Thales Alenia Space) using their Spacebus 3000B2 model and launched on October 5 1998 with a 12-year anticipated life. Within 48 hours all of its clients had been successfully transferred to Eurobird 16 (already on station, and previously called Atlantic Bird 4) or W2M or Sesat 1.__________________
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Written by Chris Forrester - Thursday, 08 April 2010
Eutelsat’s W2 craft has been moved to a graveyard orbit, beyond the normal Clarke Belt.
W2 suffered an “anomaly” back on January 27 in its normal orbital position of 16 deg East. Eutelsat had already placed two other spacecraft into the slot (Eutelsat W2M and Sesat 1) to maintain service.
It now seems that W2 was quietly moved out of harm’s way last month, and saw ground technicians raise its orbital position some 200 km into a so-called ‘graveyard orbit’.
W2 was built by Alcatel Space (now Thales Alenia Space) using their Spacebus 3000B2 model and launched on October 5 1998 with a 12-year anticipated life. Within 48 hours all of its clients had been successfully transferred to Eurobird 16 (already on station, and previously called Atlantic Bird 4) or W2M or Sesat 1.__________________