MEASAT-3 retired after anomaly causes massive outage

MEASAT Global Berhad has announced the retirement of its MEASAT-3 satellite.

The satellite operator has said that MEASAT-3 is unable to re-enter service following the discovery of an anomaly on June 21. 

The incident, which is still being investigated by the company and Boeing Satellite Systems, resulted in a complete outage of service which particularly impacted Astro’s direct-to-home TV service. According to The Science Times, the satellite drifted out of orbit over the course of a month as a result of a thruster failure caused by a position issue. 

The satellite will be de-orbited in the coming weeks. 

The MEASAT-3 satellite has provided services since December 2006 to over 100 countries across Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The operator said that it will be succeeded by MEASAT-3d, which is scheduled for launch in early 2022 and restore the satellite redundancy at the company’s key orbital hotslot 91.5°E. The satellite also promises to enhance broadband speed of up to 100 Mbps in areas with limited or without any terrestrial connectivity throughout Malaysia.