Translated material
End of connection
The Far East was left without television and radio
The Express AM-11 satellite, with the help of which Siberians and Far Easterners watched central television until this Wednesday, will be flooded. This was announced yesterday by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Space Communications”, which ensured the operation of the spacecraft. According to experts, on March 29 at 3:41 am Moscow time, an “external influence” was exerted on the satellite, which broke through the thermal control system. As a result, coolant was released from the liquid circuit, and the device itself lost orientation. Most likely, Express AM-11 collided with a piece of another satellite that remained in low-Earth orbit.Because of this, 17 regions of the Far East and Siberia were left virtually without communications. The transmission of the central heating television signal and radio broadcasting were stopped, vast territories were cut off from the Internet, and interruptions in cellular communications began. It suddenly became clear that by turning off just one satellite it was possible to create an information blockade of the entire east of Russia. And although a few hours later, Space Communications specialists managed to partially restore the broadcast of Moscow television programs by transferring the signal to three other satellites, just yesterday afternoon about 7 million people remained without radio and TV.
The orientation of the damaged spacecraft was restored, but without a thermal control system it began to overheat. Yesterday afternoon, Cosmic Communications reported that it was decided to “bury” Express AM-11 while it was still controllable. To prevent the satellite itself from turning into space debris, it will soon be removed from orbit and flooded. The loss of this device is especially sad because it is one of the new and modern television broadcasting satellites, of which Russia does not have many. Express AM-11 did not operate in orbit for even two years (it was launched on April 27, 2004), although it was designed for 12 years of operation.
The accident also caused an aggravation of the conflict between government entities operating on the airwaves. The press service of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network", which provides rebroadcasting of central radio and TV throughout the country, stated that Space Communications did not have backup broadcasting schemes, and transferring the signal to other satellites worsened its quality. According to RTRS, the culprit for the fact that in Russia there is no “unified system for managing the national television and radio broadcasting network” is the Ministry of Information Communications with its “selfish, narrow departmental, irresponsible approach” (Cosmic Communications is subordinate to this department). RTRS has long been striving to create a ground-based backup signal delivery system (which will allow this enterprise to abandon its “satellite dependence”), but the ministry does not support the idea of “grounding” broadcasting.