Space weather's effects on satellites

Is your cable television on the fritz? One explanation, scientists suspect, may be the weather -- the weather in space, that is. MIT researchers are investigating the effects of space weather -- such as solar flares, geomagnetic storms and other forms of electromagnetic radiation -- on geostationary satellites, which provide much of the world's access to cable television, Internet services and global communications. Geostationary satellites orbit at the same rate as the Earth's rotation, essenti...