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" Last week&amp;#039;s failure of telecommunications satellite Express-AM11 is being blamed on a &amp;quot;sudden external impact,&amp;quot; according to New Scientist. The satellite&amp;#039;s operators, Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC), placed Express-AM11 in a disposal orbit over the weekend. Operators first noticed a problem when telemetry from the satellite indicated that a fluid cooling loop had depressurized rapidly, likely frying electronics after the craft experienced massive fluctuations in temperature. Although there are over 4 million pounds of space junk in orbit, a NASA orbital debris expert tells New Scientist that it is extremely rare for a geostationary satellite such as Express-AM11 to be hit by debris. A micro-meteoroid could also be responsible for the damage. NASA (along with foreign space agencies) tracks over 9000 man-made objects in orbit, and estimates of the total number of objects 1 cm and larger are well over 100,000. More on how satellites work here. --Benjamin Chertoff Express-AM11&amp;#039;s footprint covered central Russian and Asia. The satellite failed late last week.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/a582/2565236/>