[Steely Tom]

A sudden temperature spike in space?

Could be a propulsion/propellant issue.

Although one might wonder if a 20-year-old satellite has very much propellant left on board.

[nickcarraway]

I heard that satellite was about to indict Christina Kirchner.

[CMB_polarization]

Took them a month to fess up to this.

[OldMissileer]

Although one might wonder if a 20-year-old satellite has very much propellant left on board.

When I was in Technical School training to be on the launch crew of the Titan II ICBM a couple of the instructors took us out to part of the abandoned flight line and produced two vials. One had about 50ml of the Unsymmetrical Di-methyl Hydrazine/Hydrazine mix (the Titan II fuel) and the other vial had about 100ml of Nitrogen Tetroxide (the Titan II oxidizer). They placed the two vials on the concrete inside a coffee can and then placed a steel rod tripod over the vials. Using a brick suspended on a string from the tripod over the vials we moved back about 100 feet and then they let the brick drop from the tripod. The brick flew about 70 or more feet.

The hypergolic fuels and oxidizers are always a mixture of some kind of Hydrazine and the Nitrogen Tetroxide and just a small amount will tear apart a satellite if they leak.