The HCOS Weekly Vol. 2 Edition 4
Satellites An Article By Adley Soames
Today we will be looking at satellites, or more specifically, the lack of satellites. Satellites are an extremely important type of technology which we strongly depend on. Satellites watch the weather, giving us vital predictions about what’s going to happen. This has saved thousands of lives from natural disasters such as hurricanes, as well as saving the farming industry billions of dollars. As well as predicting the weather, satellites also make GPS systems possible, which is something almost all ships depend on for navigation. Meteorologists use two types of satellites to predict the weather. One type orbits at 35,000 kilometres above the Earth and the other
orbits at 800 kilometres. The second type (known as a polar-orbiting satellite) provides much more accurate data due to its location being closer to earth. However, the polar-orbiting satellites are extremely expensive to launch, due to the high speed it takes to enter orbit so close to Earth. Because of their pricey launch, the US only has 2 polar satellites in space: a primary and a backup. These two satellites are nearing the end of their lives. The primary satellite was never meant to collect data in the first place; it was built as a prototype. As for the backup satellite, it passed its life expectancy a year ago. Should these satellites fail, the entire US would be without any accurate weather predictions. The main dilemma in this situation is that the next polar-orbiting satellite is still being built and won’t be operational until as late as 2018. There is a good chance the old satellites will hold up until the new one is ready, but there is no guarantee. There is also no guarantee that the new satellite will survive the launch, in which case we will have to wait until 2022 for the next one. This incident will likely end with brand new satellites replacing the old ones in a few years, however, there is also a chance that an entire country could go blind for up to 8 years. In that amount of time, thousands could
die from late hurricane warnings. We are left with a dilemma. Here we have a government taking a big chance with the safety of its people, something that should never be done. To sum it all up, we have two new satellites on the way, one scheduled for 2018, the other scheduled for 2022. In the meanwhile we just have to hope the two failing satellites can hold up that long.
Created by Melody Brocke