US 'to shoot down spy satellite'

[Eugene]

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Thursday, 14 February 2008, 17:16 GMT

US 'to shoot down spy satellite'

The US military is planning to shoot down a broken spy
satellite due to crash land on Earth in the next few weeks,
US news agency AP reports.

Pentagon officials are quoted as saying they want to fire
a missile from a US Navy ship to destroy the satellite
before it enters the atmosphere.

Last month, officials said the satellite had lost power
and could contain hazardous materials.

The Pentagon is due to hold a briefing on the subject later.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7245578.stm

---

...but what about all those things we said about China?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. practice makes purrfect.

[damntexdem]

27. If they succeed. `

If it works as well as anti-missle defense, they may have a way to go before perfection.

[katty]

2. hmmm, what's on that hard drive....

[FogerRox]

49. Launched in 2006, the spy sat has a new imaging system. RIght after getting to orbit it failed.

[Phoonzang]

3. Just what we need, more debris in orbit

n/t

[winter999]

4. It is coming down anyway.

It's a matter of coming down in one big chunk that could land anywhere (and the experts think it would survive all the way to the ground) or a lot of itty-bitty pieces that will burn up in the atmosphere.

[MadHound]

7. Actually by blowing it up while it is still in orbit, it will keep many fragments in orbit

Our earth is already suffering problems from too much crap in earth orbit, and all that orbiting junk is causing mission delays, launch delays, and damage to space vehicles. Blowing up a satellite and spinning off a bunch more orbiting fragments is going to just add to the problem.

[winter999]

11. So, what to do?

And as I read it, they were going to blast it when it was deorbiting, not while it was still in orbit.

[slackmaster]

14. They need to blow it DOWN, not up

Properly placed and configured explosives could push the debris down into the atmosphere.

[Xenotime]

58. Why the fuck would you want to do that?!?

You want that shit coming down on your house?!? Even if it burns up the particles still fall to earth just not in one firey chunk.

[lynnertic]

22. if it's nuclear-powered we can all get lung cancer

[Thothmes]

34. News reports that it is powered by Hydazene, about 1000 lbs of the stuff

[Psephos]

39. Actually, that's hydrazine

and, given that it's rocket fuel, it's not likely to survive a fiery re-entry, if you think about it.

[JustDavid]

29. What kind of problems

is the earth suffering? Which missions were delayed?

If I lined a thousand football fields end to end, and somehow placed a single microscpic skin cell in the middle of each field......thats about how crowded space would be if the cells were satelites.

Thats like saying there are too many flies flying around my office building when there is one fly in here.

[Thor_MN]

44. Take your "microscpic skin cell" and accelerate it such that it can blow a hole through you

and then go spend some time on the field. It isn't about being able to step from one piece of debris to another, it's about getting hit by one. If the speed differentials were low, no big deal. I'd let a fully loaded semi trailer hit me head on, as long as it is approaching at a hundredth of a mile an hour. I wouldn't want to let a popped aluminum rivet hit me if it was approaching at thousands of miles per hour.

Turn your football field analogy into a large park. Instead of your skin cell, I'm going to randomly shoot bullets throuigh the park. Anyone care to visit it?

Yes, space is big. Getting a hole punched through you is biger.

[havocmom]

37. Is a navy ship capable of putting a missle into orbit?

:shrug:

[lynnertic]

47. The missile is an SM-3; won't go into orbit but will

ostensibly reach the target in *its* orbit.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4249458.html
Satellite Shot Offers Navy Key Space Defense Trial: How It Works

By Joe Pappalardo
Published on: February 14, 2008

The Pentagon today announced that a Navy warship has been tasked with shooting down a failing United States spy satellite that, if left alone, was expected to hit Earth within weeks.

In a joint news conference, NASA administrator Michael Griffith and Gen. James Cartwright, the No. 2 officer at the Defense Department, announced that an SM-3 missile, designed to hit inbound ballistic missiles, will be fired from a Navy cruiser or destroyer during the next month to obliterate the inbound spacecraft. The idea is to break apart the satellite to rid it of toxic fuel onboard by smashing its tank, which is the largest intact piece left. If successful, it would be the first direct U.S. test against a satellite since 1985, when an F-15 climbed to 80,000 ft. to fire a three-stage missile at a defunct solar-monitoring platform in low-Earth orbit.

[Orsino]

42. It's unlikely that any fragments would be moved into stable orbits...

...if the satellite's really due for reentry.

[ConcernedCanuk]

5. They'll never tell us if they miss it

.
.
.

Ya think?

[underpants]

13. Well we might at least find out if this thing actually exists

Mind you that we have just leapt over the assumption that these contractors/contributors were actually making this thing to start with.

[bananas]

15. Amateur astronomers have been photographing it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x37825

[underpants]

16. Okay step 1 complete

We DO have to watch these people

[FogerRox]

50. Amateur astrominers have been tracking the sat, we will know with in minutes.

A $1000.00 computerized telescope is very capable of tracking and photographing anything in near orbit.

[truthisfreedom]

6. It's likely full of plutonium. As I recall, some of our older satellites had small nuclear

power supplies that were designed to operate for extended periods.

[Kolesar]

21. Deep space probes used those because solar cells are not useful near out Saturn

There was a big stink about the Cassini probe.

[Winterblues]

8. "and could contain hazardous materials."

This is what so many people were up in arms over when NASA first put nuclear material into Space..

[madrchsod]

9. more small bits of metal that will foul up space

if this shit keeps up our satellite based communications will be crippled

[fed-up]

10. maybe they want to destroy the evidence that they were spying on Dems (& lord knows who else)??? nt

[xxqqqzme]

25. That's what I'm thinkin'.

If we blow it to bits, all our 'allies', some of who might be able to recover pieces, won't discover what we've been spying on. Since we can't predict, or speculate on it's probable crash site, where we might not be able to recover any of the pieces, best we destroy it completely. I guessing any information collected has been down loaded by now.

'..."there was enough of a risk for the president to be quite concerned about human life"....'

Yea, whatever you say. We all know how deep his concern for human life runs. Katrina victims could write a book.

[Delphinus]

43. See,

it's this statement right here that makes their reasoning questionable:
'..."there was enough of a risk for the president to be quite concerned about human life"....'

Since when has the boy king ever given one whit about human life?

[underpants]

12. NBC's Miklaszewski "Officals admit it it can't hit this it won't be able to hit anything"

When the story broke on MSNBC Miklaszewski ended his report with that

:rofl:

[Nihil]

41. In other news ...

... Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) have recently received a very large
contract from the Pentagon for a rush job. No details are currently
available but an inside source said that Project Missile Command was
expected to be on general release "quite soon".

:evilgrin:

[raebrek]

17. Maybe it is a decoy to show

that we can blow things up in space. I've always wondered about that capability. Would the missiles have enough fuel? Would they burn up or explode while getting into that part of the atmosphere? Maybe they are getting rid of a dangerous satellite or maybe they are show boating a capability.

Raebrek!!!

I don't own a tinfoil hat just in case you were wondering.

[The Croquist]

24. It looks like a great public relations opportunity.

I don't think that its a decoy but I agree that if we can't hit this thing we can't hit anything. I hope that we will wait until it's low enough to insure that the vast majority of the debris will come down relatively quickly. We have little to gain by polluting space. We have more military satellites then anybody else up there. Possibly more then everybody else put together. It's current trajectory is well known so the initial aim should be easy but if they let it get down to a certain point these things start to spin and the re-entry point is no more then an educated guess.

I doubt it will be too high to reach. If it was too high we wouldn't try to hit it. A miss is a public relations disaster.

I remember when Sky Lab came down they were off by something like 10,000 miles in estimating where it was going to land.

I don't think we use plutonium on these things either. Earth is close enough to the sun to use solar panels. It's the ones that go to Jupiter and further that use plutonium. Cassini was probably the most famous. I didn't like the mission. If the rocket blew up it would have been VERY bad.

[raebrek]

54. This states it like I was thinking.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/NATION/190574197/1001

Raebrek!!!

[baldguy]

18. Doesn't this story reveal secret & vital "methods & practices" ?

[BadgerKid]

19. Is it the former Iraq satellite? n/t

[hermetic]

20. One of the first reports here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/29/tech/main3767747.shtml?source=RSS&attr=HOME_3767747

"The satellite includes some small engines that contain a toxic chemical called hydrazine — which is rocket fuel. But Renuart said they are not large booster engines with substantial amounts of fuel."

Lot's of other info in the article, as well.

[paparush]

23. WTF? This story gets more wierd by the day. The MIR space station was HUGE

and its orbit was allowed to decay and burn up.

Sats decay all the time.

There are groups of satellite watchers (http://satobs.org) who predict and watch these things all the time.

[CGowen]

26. I hope the Russians will be able to distinguish it from an ICBM aimed at them n/t

[cottonseed]

28. Just outsource it to China.

They can knock it out for about 5 bucks.

[ConcernedCanuk]

30. Vista maybe? "its on-board computer tried rebooting several times....failed"

.
.
.

USA 193 Comes Down

/snip/

The experimental L-21 classified satellite, built for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, was launched successfully on Dec. 14 but has been out of touch since reaching its low-earth orbit.

Limited data received from the satellite indicated that its on-board computer tried rebooting several times, but those efforts failed, said one official, who is knowledgeable about the program and spoke on condition of anonymity.

/snip/

John Locker has been watching this sucker steadily lose altitude, posting images of the satellite like the one adorning this post. “193 has come down about 30 km in the last 3 months, so by spring we should be able to get even better resolution,” Locker noted in December 2007, “but it begs the question , will the operators let it continue to fall …”?

_______________________________________________________

So the thing NEVER worked?

Not much wonder the PNAC gang is getting their shorts in a knot over IRAN supposedly putting up a satellite soon . . .

[FogerRox]

51. Right, it never worked. It does have a new gen imaging system though .....

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

31. Eastasia.

[Redstone]

32. Yah, sure they will. Just like the Patriots shot down all those SCUDS.

Remember that?

Redstone

[JBoy]

33. In 1978 a Soviet satellite crashed in Northern Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_954

Cosmos 954 was a Soviet Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite (RORSAT) with an onboard nuclear reactor. The satellite's reactor core failed to separate and boost into a nuclear-safe orbit, and instead remained onboard in an orbit that decayed until the satellite reentered Earth's atmosphere on January 24, 1978. The satellite crashed in the Northwest Territories, Canada, spreading its radioactive fuel on a 600 kilometres (370 mi) path from Great Slave Lake to Baker Lake. In an attempt to recover radioactive material, a search was conducted covering a total of 124,000 square kilometres (48,000 sq mi).

Subsequent recovery efforts, named Operation Morning Light, by a joint American-Canadian team swept the area by foot and air until the spring ice breakup in April made further searches impractical. They were ultimately able to recover 12 larger pieces of the satellite. These pieces displayed radioactivity of up to 1.1 sieverts per hour, yet they only comprised an estimated 1% of the fuel. For these recovery efforts, the Canadian Government billed the Soviet Union $6,041,174.70 for actual expenses and additional compensation for future unpredicted expenses; the U.S.S.R. eventually paid the sum of 3 million dollars.

[daleo]

36. I remember that

It had a hockey puck in it. Those Russians would do anything to put one in our net.

[ConcernedCanuk]

55. Wikipedia needs update - only 0.1% of the power source was recovered - 99.9% is still around,

.
.
.

The COSMOS 954 Accident

The clean-up operation was a coordinated event between the United States and Canada. Dubbed "Operation Morning Light", the clean-up effort continued into October 1978 and resulted, according to the Atomic Energy Control Board (now the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission), in the estimated recovery of about 0.1 percent of COSMOS 954's power source.

/snip/ (and take note of the following)

The crash of COSMOS 954 raised international policy questions. Soon after the satellite's crash, there was a call from the United States to prohibit satellites containing radioactive material from orbiting the earth.
_________________________________________________________________________

Methinks maybe the USA Government doesn't want anyone to find out what exactly is in that satellite

Wouldn't surprise me if it's got something nuclear/radioactive in it.

NO, I DON'T trust the USA Government,

not for a nanosecond.

[happyslug]

35. Duplicate Subject, Different Newspaper for the story:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2865602

[Trajan]

38. CMON people ....

You havent yet guessed that the White House has a new space-weapony thingy they want to try out ?

Why let a good target just drop into the ether when you can blast it to smithereens ?

Ask the Gungeonites about that feeling they get when they shoot cans on fence posts ....

:sarcasm:

[SpikeTss]

40. There is no difference to Soviet propaganda anymore ...

The difference is that Soviets didn't believe anything written in the Pravda, but we believe anything our regime said, no matter how ridiculous is is.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0802/14nrol21/

"Concerned about the potential health threat, the Bush administration approved a plan to fire a standard tactical missile from an Aegis cruiser in an attempt to hit the falling satellite around the end of February."

...

"Others have wondered if the Pentagon wants to ensure that no classified systems make it to the ground where they could possibly be recovered and subjected to analysis.

But Cartwright said the only concern was the threat posed by the satellite's load of hydrazine fuel.

"It's the hydrazine here that's the distinguishing characteristic," he said."

*ROFLMAO*

Just like reading the Pravda on a bad day!

[progressoid]

45. Ha, since when does the American Gov't care about a dead satelite?

We let satelites burn up all the time. Now suddenly we have to shoot them down?

Hmmm...what's that fishy smell? x(

[libnnc]

52. pre-zactly.

Why must we shoot down this one?

[HowHasItComeToThis]

46. I THOUGHT THAT THEY BURN UP ON RE-ENTRY

[ReformedChris]

53. Not always, depends on size/other factors. Skylab came down in chunks, so did Mir.. nt

[0007]

48. Perhaps they'll shoot down the one that India put up for Israel?

[daleo]

56. I think this is about China

China did an anti-satellite test, so the U.S. military thinks it has to prove it can do one as well. But the Chinese test was called irresponsible (by the U.S., among others), so the U.S. military had to wait for an opportunity to blast a satellite that they could frame as a civilian necessity.

Hydrazine would burn up in the atmosphere (or be highly diluted), so I find the environmental angle a stretch, especially coming from an organization that routinely uses depleted uranium in its weaponry.

[Xenotime]

57. Did the Pentagon outsource the construction of it to China?

[bahrbearian]

59. So take Snarly Dick up on the Shuttle

Open the Bay doors, move Snarly out on the end of the Boom Crane, Blam ,Blam the ultimate Canned Hunt, Befitting for a great American Hero.