Drifting satellite threatens US cable programming

[CoolBreeze]

LONDON (AP) - A TV communications satellite is drifting out of control thousands of miles above the Earth, threatening to wander into another satellite's orbit and interfere with cable programming across the United States, the satellites' owners said Tuesday.

Communications company Intelsat said it lost control of the Galaxy 15 satellite on April 8, possibly because the satellite's systems were knocked out by a solar storm. Intelsat cannot remotely steer the satellite to remain in its orbit, so Galaxy 15 is creeping toward the adjacent path of another TV communications satellite that serves U.S. cable companies.

Galaxy 15 continues to receive and transmit satellite signals, and they will probably interfere with the second satellite, known as AMC 11, if Galaxy 15 drifts into its orbit as expected around May 23, according to AMC 11's owner, SES World Skies.

AMC 11 receives digital programming from cable television channels and transmits it to all U.S. cable networks from its orbit 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above the equator, SES World Skies said. It operates on the same frequencies as Galaxy 15.

"That fact means that there is likely to be some kind of interference," SES World Skies spokesman Yves Feltes told The Associated Press. "Our aim is to bring any interference down to zero."

He would not name any of the cable television channels or providers that could be affected or say how long the interference could last.

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[Scott Reppert]

I am one of the group that this will not affect and am proud of it.

Hey! It just hit me! This thing may be on our side!

Ya'll gotta start gettin' that crap out yo' house...

[The Shadow]

Here's a partial list of Networks on the AMC 11 Satellite

In Demand
Lifetime
Hallmark
C-SPAN
E! East
The Style Network
G4 TV
Food Network
DIY Network
HGTV
Great American Country
QVC
A&E
History East / West
The Weather Channel
NESN
MTV Networks
The CW
Discovery Channel Networks
HD Theater
TV Land
Spike TV
Comedy Central
Showtime Networks
BBC America
NBC Networks

Full list is here http://www.lyngsat.com/amc11.html

[Big Media]

Holy shit. Let's hope the damn thing at least waits until sweeps is over.

I swear to god if this thing causes me to miss Ice Road Truckers, I will blast it out of the sky myself.