Smallscreen News

Rogue satellite may disrupt US cable TV programming

By April MacIntyre May 11, 2010, 20:13 GMT

A four-way composite handout of satellite pictures of the air space over Europe with the ash clouds from the volcanic eruption in Iceland, taken at different times on 16 April 2010. The volcano erupted under Eyjafjoll glacier and spew ashes into the air which endanger the jet engines and affect pilots\' vision and have brought air traffic in vast parts of Europe to a standstill. EPA/EUMETSAT

A solar flare or some other cosmic disturbance has caused a rogue drifting satellite to possibly careen through the orbits of other broadcast satellites and may cause havoc for US cable viewers, according to the Associated Press.

A TV communications satellite is 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 told the AP it lost control of the Galaxy 15 satellite on April 8, possibly by a solar storm.

The report claims that the Galaxy 15 is dangerously close to another orbital path of another TV communications satellite that serves U.S. cable companies.

The AP writes:

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."

What was not made clear was which US cable television channels or providers would be affected, or how long the interference could last.