Did OHB really not test the satellite antennas on the ground?
  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    14·
    6 months ago

    It sounds like it does radar and that it’s the radar antennas at issue, and there’s some separate antenna that they can use to communicate.

    Also, a previous satellite of the same design that was manufactured by Airbus worked. So they know the likely system and that it’s a manufacturing problem. They don’t need to design a replacement from scratch, just manufacture it. They have one satellite up. And while their older satellites in the previous constellation are past their design life and aren’t as good, they’re apparently still functioning, and hopefully will for several years.

    So it doesn’t sound that bad.

    • Rayspekt@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      6 months ago

      The only thing that sounds wild in the article is that the manufacturer supposedly didn’t test the antennae’s unfolding mechanism on the ground. Did they think they could just send a technician if something won’t work lmao

      • MartianSands@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        6 months ago

        Systems like that can easily be difficult or impossible to test on the ground, because they aren’t strong enough to work under gravity. They might need to be in free-fall to survive being deployed

        • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.todayEnglish
          11·
          6 months ago

          TBF the cost justification of added machinery weight to operate under many conditions is still better than needing to restart completely when it failed.

      • floofloofEnglish
        7·
        6 months ago

        Germany is experiencing a rise in the far right too, though it hasn’t yet gone as far as in France.

        • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zipEnglish
          4·
          6 months ago

          Certainly, I am German myself. Everything that happens in us politics happens here as well some while later. I just didn’t agree with the suggestion that it is Germany again “leading the way”.

          The real reason is the russian digital warfare campaign on the West that has been ongoing for years, while our societies are entirely unprepared and helpless against this new type of conflict and have allowed Russia to prop up sycophantic far right parties all over the West, beginning with the trump operation.

      • cows_are_underrated@feddit.orgEnglish
        41·
        6 months ago

        The world is experiencing it. Germany, France, the states, Italy. They alle have the same problem: The rise of fascism.