Dish has an interesting problem on their hands - they can't turn on the batteries because they might explode, so the satellite is running on solar power. They are trying to "park" it about 200 miles up out of the geostationary zone it's in now to get it away from other communications satellites, which is the real danger - if those batteries blow, they'll take out other communications satellites. They have until the end of February before the satellite passes into the Earth's shadow and solar power will no longer be usable.
The satellites that SpaceX is launching are in low earth orbit, thousands of miles lower and not in the danger zone. |
