Roscosmos: European communications satellite Intelsat 33e was destroyed in orbit

The European communications satellite Intelsat 33e was destroyed in orbit. This was announced today, October 22, by Roscosmos.

According to Russian experts, the incident was "instantaneous and high-energy in nature." As a result, more than 80 fragments were recorded, which pose a potential threat to all nearby geostationary spacecraft, including four Russian ones.

"A significant increase in the number of space objects in the orbital plane of the destroyed Intelsat 33e telecommunications satellite has been recorded. As a result of the observations, Roscosmos specialists found more than 80 fragments of the spacecraft, the report says. "Based on the obtained dynamics of the distribution of Intelsat—33e debris, it can be concluded that there is a potential threat to all operating spacecraft, including the orbital grouping of the Roscosmos State Corporation, in the geostationary region of outer space."

On October 19, the SpaceNewst portal reported that Intelsat-33e lost its power source, which led to a complete shutdown of the device. At Intelsat (its headquarters is located in Luxembourg) clarified that work is underway with the manufacturer of the satellite, Boeing, but the return of the device to service is considered unlikely. According to the portal, the US Space Command is tracking about 20 objects associated with the device.

On the eve of the Russian warning system about dangerous situations in near-Earth outer space (ASPOS OKP) recorded about two dozen unidentified space objects near the standing point of the device.

Preliminary analysis showed that the closest spacecraft to Intelsat-33e were the Express-AT1, Yamal-402, Express-AM6, and Electro-L satellites.