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Here's an article that gives some background on the meteor showers,
the odds that it will take out a satellite (less than 0.1%), etc.
(I wonder if the sat. stocks will bounce up a bit, once the storm
has passed?)
source: http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/981113/9o.html
Friday November 13, 5:43 pm Eastern Time
Satellites facing minimal threat from meteor storm
By Jessica Hall
NEW YORK, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The Leonid meteor storm expected next week
will be the most intense in 32 years, but it still will pose little
threat to commercial satellite operators, the companies said.
Some satellite operators said they initially feared the storm could
resemble the world-threatening scenes from the summer asteroid movies
``Armageddon'' and ``Deep Impact,'' but now they realize there is
minimal threat to the 600 satellites orbiting Earth that broadcast
television shows, transmit paging services and electronic fund
transfers, and track weather.
``The original fear and trembling, gloom and doom everyone had at the
beginning of the year has subsided. People have a much better idea
about what is going to happen now,'' said Dick Tauber, vice president
of satellites and circuits for Time Warner Inc. (TWX - news) cable
television network CNN, which relies on leased satellites for its
broadcasts.
The chance that a satellite would be damaged are less than one-tenth of
one percent, experts said. Only one satellite has ever been destroyed
by a meteor shower -- the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993, said
Don Savage, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space
Administrations (NASA).
The most vulnerable satellites are the three NASA spacecraft about one
million miles about Earth, NASA said.
Commercial satellites located at 22,000 miles or less above Earth --
the ones most commonly used for broadcast TV or paging -- do not face
much risk, NASA said.
Paging service and satellite broadcast television companies said they
did not expect customers to face any problems from the meteor storm.
Every November the Earth passes through the debris cloud from the comet
Tempel-Tuttle, which creates a meteor shower as the debris particles
enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up.
In 1998 and 1999, the shower will be more intense because the Earth is
passing very close to the comet's orbital path.
The storm is expected to be less severe than a similar one in 1966, but
there are many more spacecraft in orbit today so the potential risks
are greater, NASA said.
Even though the debris particles are smaller than a grain of sand, they
could still cause damage since they travel at speeds of about 155,000
miles per hour.
The small particles could cause tiny dents on optical surfaces or
mirrors, which could reduce the performance of sensors. The biggest
threat, however, is the chance a satellite could short-circuit, as the
disintegration of a particle hitting a satellite would create an
electrically-charged cloud that could cause a sudden electrical pulse.
Fears about service disruptions from the meteor storm mounted after the
failure of a PanAmSat Corp. (SPOT - news) satellite in May, which
knocked out service to millions of paging customer across the country
and disrupted transmissions to television, radio and news photo
outlets.
That failure, which began when the satellites's on-board computer
crashed and the craft began spinning off kilter, highlighted the
world's growing dependence on satellites -- and prompted satellite
service providers and their customers to step up their preparations for
the Leonid storm.
``We think the probability of being hit is very remote,'' said Susan
Gordon, a spokeswoman for Intelsat, which operates a network of 25
satellites. But Intelsat, NASA and other satellite operators said they
plan to shift their satellites' solar panels so that only the edges and
not the delicate faces of the panels would face any onslaught of
debris.
Intelsat and NASA said it will also put some of their satellites into a
``safe mode'' by turning down or turning off some electrical components
so the satellites would be less likely to short-circuit if sand-blasted
by debris.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope also will be rotated so that any
particles would hit the more heavily-protected rear.
--
| Gary Funck, Intrepid Technology, gary@xxxxxxxxxxxx, (650) 964-8135
|