GaianSpace-2026-Writeup

103-parked-birds

Category	01-welcome
Points	20

Description

Moravec asks for documentary evidence that commercial GEO satellite operators are scaling back orders. The target is the two satellites cancelled by an operator after acquiring its rival, exactly as listed in the article, in the same order.

The abandoned Americas program and the numbers 683 / 684 ms are explicitly non-answers.

Flag format: GAIANSPACE{[Name],[Name]}

Attachments: None (public-source research).

Hints

Two hints were released during the event:

1. Who wrote the slogan — The night shift got that line from the house. The same shelf as the crowded-sky briefing holds the long version.
2. Bought, then cancelled — The two birds were ordered by the company that was bought, not by the one that bought it. Each one is a short name with a number. A program is not a bird.

Solution

Steps

1. Identify the acquisition

SES completed its acquisition of Intelsat in July 2025. The challenge asks for orders inherited from the acquired operator, rather than an unrelated expansion project.

2. Find the cancelled satellite orders

In 2026, SES cancelled two GEO spacecraft originally ordered by Intelsat from Thales Alenia Space: IS-41 and IS-44. These are satellite designations, not a latency measurement or the separately cancelled Americas project.

3. Check spelling and order

The challenge explicitly requires the names in published order. They are IS-41 first and IS-44 second, with no spaces after the comma in the submitted flag.

Exploit Code

Not applicable. This is a source-verification/OSINT challenge. The answer is obtained by comparing the acquisition announcement with the cancelled-order reporting.

References

• SES — Completion of Intelsat acquisition (17 July 2025)
• Via Satellite — SES cancels two GEO satellites (12 May 2026)
• Data Center Dynamics — SES cancels IS-41 and IS-44 (26 May 2026)

Flag

GAIANSPACE{IS-41,IS-44}