They‘re streaks of lights in the sky which make for a pleasant sight. But meteor showers are known to damage manmade satellites in their orbits. Bearing this in mind, Indian space agency Isro has braced itself for the Leonid meteor showers expected to peak on Sunday, 18 November, during their ongoing passage through Earth‘s orbit.
The government agency has taken steps to ensure its satellites‘ wellbeing when the showers reach their zenith between 2.30 PM and 3.30 PM and again between 10.30 PM and 11.30 PM on the weekend. Isro will temporarily suspend camera operations and the camera steering mechanism for its remote sensing satellites (IRS) which help meteorologists predict weather through satellite images. Solid state recorders will be off for about 10 hours.

It is taking precautions for its communications and broadcast satellites as well. The solar arrays of the Insat series of satellites will be positioned so that they present minimum surface area to the showers. The Gyros on board these birds will be kept continuously on to detect any disturbances due to impact. In case of any disturbances, the satellites will be brought back to their proper orientation using reaction control thrusters on board. ISRO has also kept designers of the various satellite subsystems on alert to help in taking contingency measures in case of any incident.

IRS satellites are in the near earth polar orbits. According to the Isro, the probability of meteors hitting the IRS satellites is about 0.013 per cent and for INSATs, it is around 0.035 per cent. ISRO currently has five satellites in operation (IRS-1C, IRS-1D, IRS-P3, IRS-P4 and TES) in the Polar sun-synchronous orbits and five satellites (INSAT-2C, INSAT-2DT, INSAT-2E, INSAT-3B and GSAT-1) in the geo-stationary orbit.

The last time Leonids produced what astronomers call a storm was in 1966 when only a handful of satellites orbited Earth. This time round, hundreds of satellites are at risk, providing services ranging from pagers and television to weather forecasts. Predictions for the number of meteors per hour during this year‘s peak on 18 November range from 1,400 to 15,000, with Asia slated to see around 8000 per hour.

In 1999, the last year that a strong Leonids meteor shower was predicted, satellite operators effectively put many of their spacecraft into hibernation (turning off or minimizing data collecting and sending operations) while still maintaining critical services here on Earth.

NASA Space Flight Center‘s Bill Cooke has told media that the odds of a satellite being damaged during the peak hours of the Leonid meteor shower are between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 1,000. Cooke has indicated that at least one satellite could be significantly damaged during the entire storm which spans several days. The risk this year is five to 10 times greater than in 1999, Cooke said.

Retecal, The largest cable operator in Castillay Leon, one of Spain‘s largest regions has signed a deal with Motorala to offer end to end, high speed data access solutions to its subscribers.
Retecal will deploy the company‘s interactive analog cable platform as part of its newest cable system. The platform is based on Motorola‘s advanced analog SURFview set-top terminals. The terminals help operators offer the latest video, voice, and data services to their subscribers.

According to a Motorola release, current subscribers of the cable operator will be able to enjoy interactive services. Retecal is now aiming to expand this service to other cities, the release says. Retecal claims to have over 60,000 TV subscribers, 25,000 telephone subscribers, and 16,000 broadband Internet subscribers.