Evil laughter or maniacal laughter is a stock manic laugh by a villain in fiction. In comic books, where supervillains utter such laughs, it is variously rendered as mwahahaha, muwhahaha, muahahaha, bwahahaha, pwahahaha, kekekeke or kyahahaha. [source: wikipedia] Just an FYI for those who read the Urban dictionary who would have you believe it means something stupid and unintelligible. I guess they don't watch HORROR films or ever listened to Michael Jackson's THRILLER song. Who here is the idiot?!
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Yahoo News
written by Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer
Friday September 17, 2010 at 12:16pm ET
A wayward satellite that has spent months drifting in orbit has not shut itself down as originally predicted, and continues to pose a signal interference risk for other craft.
The so-called "zombie satellite," Intelsat's Galaxy 15 communications satellite, lost contact with ground controllers in April, but continues to follow a stable path as its operators on Earth work to avoid potential interference with other nearby spacecraft.
In an unprecedented satellite malfunction, the telecommunications broadcast package on Galaxy 15 is stuck on and still transmits signals, but ground controllers are unable to control the solar-powered craft. Intelsat engineers initially estimated that the satellite would lose power and shut itself off in late August, but so far, that has not happened.
"It has not powered down yet, and it continues to drift – but, we still know where it's going, and it's still following a predictable path," Intelsat spokesman Nick Mitsis told SPACE.com.
The team's main focus is preventing Galaxy 15's signals from interfering with neighboring satellites, since Intelsat officials have said there is no risk of it physically colliding with other spacecraft. [Worst Space Debris Moments in History]
How it all started
The 4,171-pound (1,892-kg) satellite went rogue on April 5, when it stopped responding to controllers on the ground. Intelsat has been investigating the cause of the glitch, including the possibility of a solar storm interference.
Following the anomaly, the spacecraft started veering off its assigned orbital slot of 133 degrees west longitude, 22,000 miles (36,000 km) over the equator, yet the "zombie satellite" maintained an active payload, with its C-band telecommunications transmitter still functioning.
At the moment, Galaxy 15 is drifting close to the orbit of Mexico's Satmex 5 communications satellite, and will make its closest approach on Sept. 21.
"We're working with Satmex and sharing the Galaxy 15 information that we have right now," Mitsis said. "We're relaying lessons learned from previous flyby sessions and offering recommendations for Satmex to support their maneuver."
Most recently, Intelsat engineers assisted Telesat, a satellite services provider headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, as Galaxy 15 swooped by the Canadian Anik F3 satellite. The flyby was completed safely without any signal interruption on Sept. 14.
Before that, Intelsat oversaw four other flybys of satellites in its own fleet, including Galaxy 13 and 14.
In May, the satellite operator SES World Skies – whose AMC-11 satellite passed nearGalaxy 15's path at the time – worked with Intelsat to successfully perform a series of intricate maneuvers to avoid interference and service interruptions.
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