Malaysian operator Measat announced that it has retained continuous telemetry and command control of aging satellite Measat-3 that ExoAnalytic Solutions, a space tracking company. The Measat-3 has been drifting westward in geostationary orbit for nearly a month.
The ExoAnalytic space tracking system detected an irregularity for Measat-3 on June 21, after which it started drifting out of its 91.5 East orbital slot. Measat-3 apparently made several in-orbit maneuvers after it started to drift on June 22.
However, Bill Therien, Executive Vice President of Engineering at ExoAnalytic Solutions said that it was possible that Measat is still able to communicate with and recover the Boeing-built satellite, which was almost at the end of its operational life after its launch in 2006.
The satellite is based on the Boeing 601 and operated by Measat. Boeing is conducting a detailed investigation to determine the root cause of irregularity on Measat-3.
The operator announced on June 26 that an irregularity it detected on June 21 had been resolved, and its team had been in full control of Measat-3 for about two days.
ExoAnalytic Solutions observed no debris around Measat-3 when it started drifting and added that there was no near-term collision risk with another object in space.
Stewart Bain, CEO of Canadian company Northstar, which is planning a satellite constellation to track other satellites, said that drifting from orbit is a natural phenomenon for satellites as they age. However, he also conceded that Measat-3’s was a more extreme case.
The satellite covered Asia, Australia, Southern Europe, Africa and the Middle East with C-band and Malaysia, Indonesia and South Asia with Ku-band services.
Measat claimed it was able to immediately migrate and restore broadcast services on other satellites in its fleet after the satellite ran into issues. All Measat-3 transponders were deactivated to prevent interference with other satellites.
Measat said in May 2019 that Airbus Defence and Space will build a Measat-3 replacement called Measat-3d in time for a 2021 launch. Measat-3d is also due to effectively replace another aging satellite called Measat-3a, which launched in 2009.
