logo
welcome
Space

Space

How a leap year mistake knocked out a OneWeb satellite for 2 days

Space
Summary
Nutrition label

74% Informative

Eutelsat 's OneWeb satellite broadband service that covers much of Europe , Africa , Asia and the Americas was hit with a 48-hour power outage.

The company didn’t account for the extra day in 2024 in at least one of their systems.

The origin of the leap year , which adds one day to the end of February once every four years , dates back to 46 B.C. An astronomer named Sosigenes of Alexandria told Julius Caesar that the tropical year (or the solar year ) lasted about 365 days .