Posted October 24, 2008:

Intelsat has announced that it must make an unexpected decommissioning and disposal of the MARISAT-F2 satellite, which has been in service for South Pole Station broadband data communications since 2001.

Decommissioning will mean a permanent loss of service for the station, as the satellite will be disabled. The last date of service for South Pole Station is October 28, 2008.  South Pole broadband coverage will reduce to 9.5 hours/day from the present 11.5 hours/day.

Details of the Decommissioning

Location:
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station

Event Date/Time:
October 29, 2008/00:00 Station local time (DST)
October 28, 2008/04:00 MST
October 28, 2008/06:00 EST
October 28, 2008/11:00 UTC

Event Description:
The MARISAT command and control subsystem is degrading to an unstable configuration faster than previously expected. Due to the risk of losing control of the satellite, Intelsat has decided to de-orbit MARISAT-F2 on October 29 instead of November 30. (The last South Pole pass will be October 28, 2008.) This is a permanent situation.

Type of Outage:
Scheduled

Duration of Event:
Permanent

Event Impact Analysis:
South Pole Station will lose two hours of bi-directional 1.544 Mbps connectivity per day.  TDRS-F1 will now be the first satellite to rise during the daily pass.  In the event of a TDRS failure, there will be no redundancy in the early part of the pass.

Additional Notes:
Bandwidth allocations will be reviewed.  Any grantees affected by this new operational condition will be directly contacted.