U.S. Considering Shooting Down Satellite

Aviation Week ^ | David A. Fulghum

[blackdog]

Somethin is fishy here. Hydrazine is Alar, you know the stuff they spray on apples and fruit. It’s used in boiler water treatment and in rocket fuels. It’s not like it’s some rare compound we’re not exposed to already.

[cripplecreek]

I suspect they’re more concerned about some secret spy tech stuff surviving.

[battlecry]

Hydrazine will kill you. It is very reactive and dangerous.
It will corrode your skin or lungs until you die a painful death.

[Tallguy]

Aerospace Corp., a California-based research organization that regularly advises the Defense Department, has assembled some basic data about falling satellites and what can be done about them. "For an orbiting object, shooting it down actually breaks the object into many pieces, some of which could be hazardous to other satellites," says the Aerospace Corp. "Many of the fragments will survive re-entry, but be spread over a much larger area. The pros and cons for a specific case would need to be examined."

Translation: peel us off $10 million & we'll do a quickie 'study' for ya with a really nifty Power Point presentation.

[battlecry]

We have a winner! Quite a lot survived the Columbia crash. That is on their minds. Bad guys may precisely track reentry and dig up what they can.

[maquiladora]

I guess it depends on the quantity or concentration. Just like the way there is radioactive material in some smoke alarms, but not enough for a dirty bomb :-)

[nygoose]

...debris could reveal U.S. national security secrets if recovered by other nations.

Not likely that there is anything left that has not already been sold or given away by "persons of non-interest".

[CholeraJoe]

It is nasty but the amount on board the satellite pales in comparison to what’s on the Shuttle. We’ve had two of those burn up and not one spotted owl or snail darter was injured.

[azhenfud]

Why does NASA not prepare and send a shuttle to retrieve the thing? isn’t that what the shuttle’s inception was all about?

[Condor51]

.S. officials are studying the possibility of shooting down the errant Lockheed Martin intelligence satellite that was launched into space for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Set all Beebers to 'stun'.

[cripplecreek]

Considering the fact that so much of our stuff is made in China its hard to say what is and isn’t secret anymore.

[Pistolshot]

Since it is an NRO sat, and supposed to have been in a 'secret' orbit, you can bet there are some other things onboard that the DIA doesn't want to fall into the wrong hands.

Maybe they will dust off the ASAT program for a one-shot.

[poindexter]

One person was brushed on the shoulder by a piece of debris in 1997.

Yes, I remember the Clinton years...but it sure as heck wasn't just one, and the shoulder was just the start!

/hijack

[bill1952]

What is missing here is exactly how we would shoot down such a craft.

The last that I heard we no longer had the weapon systems to do this.

[blackdog]

You mean like anhydrous amonia? Chlorine gas? Nitric acid?

[poindexter]

Hydrazine is not Alar. A derivative of hydrazine is used to make Alar. Apples and oranges (so to speak).

[wita]

Interesting point, although the satellite orbit might be considerable higher, oops, what orbit, that’s why it is falling. We need a space garbage truck. You know it is a full time job just tracking the garbage much less the active stuff.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

The concern is that the spacecraft carries a full tank of hydrazine - a toxic propellant - that would have been used to reposition the satellite in orbit. Government analysts say the odds are that the tank will crack open during re-entry or than it will land in the ocean, which makes up 70% of the area where the breaking up satellite might land.

As we say in the industry, dilution is the solution to pollution.

[Wavrnr10]

EXCUSE ME....if the tank is full....fire it and put it back into orbit!!!!!