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GE Americom Fleet Unscathed by Leonids 2000
Annual Meteor Shower Peaked on November 18
 The GE Americom satellite fleet successfully weathered the annual Leonids meteor shower, which peaked at approximately 3 a.m. EST on November 18, 2000. Full transponder availability was maintained during the storm, and all spacecraft have been commanded back to normal operational configurations.
In preparation for the storm, Americom's Spacecraft Systems and Operations department postponed all scheduled operations and maneuvers, increased spacecraft operations staffing at all TT&C control sites and the Princeton Headquarters Monitoring Center, and positioned all solar arrays edge-on to the incoming particle stream to minimize the cross-sectional areas to the storm. Customers were kept up-to-speed through letters and presentations, and engineers posted real-time storm updates on the GE Americom Web site (https://geamericom.com/leonid/index.html).
Leonid meteors are caused by the particle stream of Comet Temple-Tuttle as its orbit passes closes to the sun. The sun heats the comet, creating a unique stream with its own orbit. The earth and the satellites in its orbit pass through these particle steams every November. This year's storm peaked at approximately 500 meteors per hour -considerably lower than the 5,000 meteors per hour reported in 1999. Leonids 2000 was best observed in western Europe and eastern North America.
Americom will incorporate lessons learned across the entire space industry and modify procedures accordingly in preparation for next year's Leonid shower, which is expected to peak at more than 10,000 meteors per hour.
"Scientists are predicting a much more powerful storm next year," explains Nick Chilelli, principle spacecraft engineer, GE Americom. "We will follow the same course of action taken during the three previous storms, while continuing to apply key lessons learned from these events."
For additional information on the Leonids, please refer too:
· http://www.leonidslive.com/
· http://sci2.esa.int/leonids2000/
· http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/
· http://www.imo.net/leo99/leo99index.html
· http://www.leonidstorm.com/leonidstorm/index.html 
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