Astrological events may cause GPS outages

From Jim Shinpaugh, ENP, Project Manager, Mission Critical Partners, Inc. via Michele Abbott:

Two astrological events are about to occur that will have some short term effect on satellite communications and possibly some long term damage.

On February 15^th 2013 an asteroid the size of a 15 story building will pass in low earth orbit.  This is where the communications and GPS satellites operate.  NASA has already alerted satellite service operators to be ready to relocate their satellites to avoid destruction.  Services impacted will be weather data, Iridium sat phones, GPS, VSAT, TV and other spaced based communications services.

When the satellites are temporarily moved many earth stations will lose contact with the satellite.   If this should impact one of your clients they will lose service until the satellite is put back in normal orbit.  This should be a disruption of less than 24 hours.

In the event that a satellite is struck and destroyed, your clients should contact the service provider and request a new bird assignment. They will then have to physically realign the dish services to the new assignment.  This could take several days to correct as service crews will have many callouts.  The biggest risk to our clients would be if an east coast client is rehomed to the west coast or vice versa this requires a low look angle and clients may have obstacles in the path. 

Aside from services that talk directly on the satellites, the entire GPS system is at high risk.  Many of our client dispatch and radio systems rely on GPS timing to function properly.  These services may experience minor errors or major disruptions throughout this event.

Naturally anyone traveling on the 15^th may experience problems with the GPS system.

The second event is a major solar flare expected between February 15^th to the 18^th.  This may also impact communications and electrical systems.