DISH Network's AMC-14 satellite fails to reach orbit

by Darren Murph posted Mar 15th 2008 at 9:39AM

Tough news, DISH Network subscribers. The AMC-14 satellite that lifted off from Kazakhstan just hours ago failed to reach orbit. Reportedly, an "anomaly occurred during the second burn of the Breeze M upper stage," causing it to never reach its final destination. As it stands, a Russian State Commission has begun an investigation to understand what caused the mishap, but unfortunately, we've no idea when a replacement will be ready for liftoff. Here's to hoping the DirecTV 11 has much better luck when it blasts off in just a couple of days.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Industry, Satellite

Tags: AMC-14, breaking news, BreakingNews, dish, dish network, DishNetwork, error, fail, failure, launch, mishap, problem, satellite

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

SAMe @ Mar 15th 2008 9:59AM

When something like this happens I wonder how much of the cost, if any, ILS is liable to DISH.

Highly Ranked

Secret Squirrel @ Mar 15th 2008 3:07PM

Quick shoot it down before the hydrazine tank...oh wait... nevermind ;)

Neutral

Sean @ Mar 15th 2008 10:21AM

Ill be asking my friend at dish if the President of the company was pissed! lol I hate dish, not as a service provider of course, just as a place to work :)

Neutral

tranzparentl @ Mar 15th 2008 10:39AM

So did the satellite burn up or is it salvageable?

Neutral

Nick @ Mar 15th 2008 12:54PM

Yes, news today from spaceflightnow.com says :
"In an update posted on its Web site, Roscosmos said the stage and the AMC 14 payload reached an orbit with a high point of about 17,400 miles, about 5,000 miles short of the intended altitude at the end of the burn.
The Breeze M deployed the spacecraft shortly after the early engine shutdown, and SES AMERICOM will now be faced with making future plans for the stranded satellite, Roscosmos said. AMC 14 could reach its target orbit if there is enough space fuel on-board, or officials could elect to use a dramatic lunar fyby to use the moon's gravity to slingshot the craft into geosynchronous orbit. Such a maneuver succeeded in 1998 for AsiaSat 3, another satellite victim of a Proton failure."

So it seems there is still hope, be it very small as AMC could still decide to self destruct it for insurance purposes (they might not get paid if they move it into orbit)

Highest Ranked

xemumanic @ Mar 15th 2008 11:02AM

This is a shame. I'm not really a Dish fan, especially with DirecTV's focus and lead in HD, and the rumors that they are going to work with MCE soon via that USB tuner, but that doesn't mean I wanted want DISH to fail to keep up. This is a big setback for them.

I hope this doesn't happen to DirecTV 11.

Neutral

Kaiser @ Mar 15th 2008 11:48AM

Brutal. I had been considering moving to Dish once they get a few more HD channels (like SciFi HD for BSG) because their DVR is WAY better than DirecTV. Was hoping this bird would bring it. Now we will probably have to wait 2 more years.

Neutral

Tim @ Mar 15th 2008 12:38PM

The truly sad thing is that America has seen fit to let foreign countries command the lead in so many of the "technology" arenas that we clearly pioneered. As I look around my home theatre, I can't find a single component that was made in the USA.
I wish I had the political savvy to understand how we could bring back to our shores the support for, and the development of, innovations that would be a hallmark of the USA.
I hope Charlie had this bird insured and, of course, I'll continue to hold out hope that there might be just enough fuel left to put AMC 14 in its assigned orbit.

Neutral

nathan @ Mar 15th 2008 1:01PM

You could fill your home theater with American made gear -- but it would cost you a considerable premium for some pieces. The choice is yours. America still manufactures quality stuff, but it's not as cheap as most of us want.

(Actually, in several cases, the gear is not necessarily more expensive AND is best of breed, like Magnepan speakers. But they are the exception rather than the rule.)

Highly Ranked

anon @ Mar 15th 2008 1:35PM

oh that's easy

1) get rid of all unions

2) get rid of all welfare programs

3) pay people about 10 cents a day

see how easy it is!!!

Low Ranked

Sam Winter @ Mar 15th 2008 10:10PM

@anon

In the future, for the benefit of all of us readers, please consider just not speaking when you have nothing other than BS to say...

Highest Ranked

Brad @ Mar 17th 2008 3:08AM

@Sam Walter Actually, anon's comments are valid. The reason people take inexpensive manufacturing overseas isn't because they're inherently better at making cheap electronics, it's because:

1) Unions have driven up the wages, increased worker benefits, and restricted the workforce. This is great for the union workers, but considering they don't do significantly better work than their overseas counterparts, the benefits aren't really worth the 1000% pay difference.

2) Companies pay taxes, quite a bit. Most corporate taxes go to one of three sources: military, social security, and health care. If you got rid of social programs, about 40% of all taxes would be freed up. Assuming that meant you didn't collect them, that's taxes that don't have to be paid and recovered by customer cost.

3) Dropping the minimum wage and having a severe unemployment problem (as many of the countries used for overseas manufacturing do) would allow a pretty severe drop in production costs - again making the US a viable home for manufacturing.

There are all kinds of other considerations - worker safety, environmental impact, worker rights for length of workweek, family health insurance, all of these things cause companies to look outside of America for manufacturing.

So even though they were poorly worded, anon's reasons in response to Tim's "Why can't we keep things like TVs and Stereos here in Amurica?" is really a simple cost calculation. Until our citizens are willing to work at the wage rate, hourly commitment, or nonexistent benefits level that our Chinese, Cambodian, or Taiwanese contemporaries are, well, we're not going to be making TVs. Truth be told, it's much healthier to be in the service side than the production side, anyway. We still do a couple of things better than anyone else in the world: Movies, music, software, and high speed pizza delivery.

=)

Neutral

treacherous @ Mar 18th 2008 12:51PM

Don't forget that whatever taxes companies pay are passed on to the consumer in the price of the product. Getting rid of the corporate tax burden altogether would usher in a new era of American product superiority when companies relocate their manufacturing and headquarters back Stateside, and invest in the American society.

Pass the FairTax now! www.fairtax.org

Neutral

nathan @ Mar 15th 2008 1:01PM

Yeah, this really sucks since while Direct TV has more HD channels, DISH has channels I prefer (like all the Voom movie channels which are OAR etc) *and* most a/b comparisons of the HD image quality of the two providers places DISH ahead of Direct TV.

Neutral

locke6854 @ Mar 15th 2008 3:40PM

Dish Network could have more channels like DirectTV, if they compressed each channel more. I'd rather them not, I don't mind having less channels if it means higher bitrate / less artifacts per channel.

Neutral

Ken @ Mar 15th 2008 1:07PM

Well that sure sucks (even as a DirecTV subscriber).

Neutral

Killer @ Mar 15th 2008 1:22PM

No ESPNEWSHD for awhile now... :( I'm depressed as a Dish Subscriber. I was really looking foward to more HD channels. I really hope they can fix the problem soon.

Highly Ranked

GhostDoggy @ Mar 15th 2008 2:58PM

This sounds dishy. How do I know it really was sent into space?

Neutral

Louis @ Mar 16th 2008 12:24AM

I was going to stay with Dish Network because of this satellite but now this makes it a no-brainer. Unless Dish finds another way to get SciFiHD and SPEEDHD to me I will be switching to DirectTV as soon as my Dish contract is up. That's ashame because I will miss some of the VOOM channels and the best DVR in the industry.
Oh yeah, I think even the French could have done a better job then ILS did.

Neutral

Stormprobe @ Mar 16th 2008 10:38PM

As the Russians would put it, "It was simply an unplanned failure of a satellite launch".

Neutral

eric @ Mar 17th 2008 8:11AM

That's what happens when you let borat's brother launch a sattelite...

Neutral

rjc2006 @ Mar 18th 2008 10:27PM

Ok, I work for the group that manufactures this satellite and I'll share what I know but you'll have to understand that I have to walk a very thin line and not give away company secrets. I know that might sound hokey to you and it may be hard to believe what I'm saying but it's only posted as a service, so take it or leave it--I don't care.

First off, LM manufactured the satellite and at one point, LM was one of the partners with ILS. LM dropped that partnership last year which helps in the PR and liability departments. You can point to reliability as a chief reason.

Here's what will happen. A decision will need to be made, either ditch the satellite or try to maneuver it to its destined orbit. The latter will most likely be what they will do but there is a problem in that the fuel that is on there was supposed to be used for orbital maneuverability once in its proper geosynchronus so with the likely burn off the satellite's useful life is greatly reduced.

Nevertheless, if it can be maneuvered then at least some life comes out of it and most likely ILS will have to pay out of pocket to DISH to compensate for the reduction in life span. If they ditch it, it would take us a minimum of 10 weeks to build out another even if we were extremely lucky.

This hurts our industry very much because the more these types of failures occur, the higher insurance premiums will go and if it keeps up then there is a chance insurance can't be bought eventually. We're already dealing with ILS's major screw up with JCSAT, building its replacement now. The last thing we needed was this on top of it.

Now as to the point about shopping out for launch services, if you think it's only about cost, you are dead wrong. In fact, cost has little to do with it.

The issue has everything to do with availability. The last couple of years have been generally successful for satellite manufacturers to a point that the US simply does not have the launch capabilities to fly every bird on the docket. It HAS to seek foreign help. So before you go all isolationalist on us try to remember that. One of the big ouches is that we retired a launch vehicle last year (can't remember the name, Titan I think or Delta) and we have no plans for a new launch vehicle any time soon. That may change though with this debacle.

Neutral

treacherous @ Mar 18th 2008 12:54PM

I wish that the U.S. would open up space to more commercial launches from inside the U.S. American ingenuity and attention to detail would prevent many of these satellite failures from ever happening in the first place.

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