U.S. Considering Shooting Down Satellite

Aviation Week ^ | David A. Fulghum

[Justa]

It takes real genius to make a multi-billion dollar satellite then not even be able to get it into its operational orbit. WTG Lockheed. One wonders how many other systems under-perform or are offline on the spy satellites which do make it to orbit.

There should be a 20% rule for multi-billion dollar defense contracts. For every catastrophic program failure 20% of upper management should be cashiered. That'd fix it -guaranteed.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Hydrazine is very easily derivatised.

[mad_as_he$$]

Not to mention airbags in cars. They are protecting the secrets. Makes me think this is not a KH series as was originally thought.

[Strategerist]

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

Recon sats are in polar orbit, launched from Vandenberg in California.

You can't launch the shuttle in a polar orbit from Florida. There was a shuttle launch facility prepared at great expense at Vandenberg in the early 80s, but abandoned and never used.

[r9etb]

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

LOL! Not all that far off ... but actually, it's just another application of the immutable First Law of Space Stuff: "it depends."

[listenhillary]

Shooting it down may send a message. Have WE ever taken out a satellite with a missile?

[r9etb]

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

The problem is that the satellite is dead -- no computers, no power. It's a very expensive rock in space.

[Strategerist]

Yes, with a missle fired from an F-15 in 1985.

[r9etb]

There should be a 20% rule for multi-billion dollar defense contracts. For every catastrophic program failure 20% of upper management should be cashiered. That'd fix it -guaranteed.

Actually, it would probably just add more "process" to the process ... and there's already way too much process in the satellite business.

[listenhillary]

Thanks. Maybe we need a reminder?

[Tennessee_Bob]

I don’t think there’s hydrazine in airbags. The stuff is too unstable for a use like that. I didn’t like having to work around it on the F-16 - I definitely wouldn’t want it in my car.

[JustDoItAlways]

After the Chinese blew up their own satellite last year with a missile and we saw the huge and dangerous debris cloud that was created, you’d think our space guys would have a little more sense.

[montag813]

Can we steer it?

[montag813]

A senior official with insight into the planning says that a rumor that the satellite carried a small, nuclear generator is "absolutely and totally incorrect."

Sounds a bit like "Space Cowboys".

[chuckles]

If they blow it up, it will just make more space junk to plot for the future. It needs to burn up or be jettisoned into deep space.

[Charles Martel]

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

I'm pretty sure the Ballistic Missile Defense system could be used for this task; it is designed to strike enemy reentry vehicles while still outside of the atmosphere.

Put an Aegis cruiser in the satellite's projected path and light-off an SM-3.

[LurkingSince'98]

sodiaum azide or a similar azide - very small amount very big boom

Lurking’

[TMSuchman]

First of all it is the guidance computer that has failed and can not be controlled, thus we can not put it back into orbit.

Second hydrozine is a hypergolic substance, that means it creats it’s own o2 while in a “burning” state. The shuttle carries 50 + gallons of it for it’s on board genteators. It is a really nasty stuff, but very effective as a rocket fuel in a 0 O2 envirment.

[SJSAMPLE]

I used to work with missiles loaded with Hydrazine (UDMH) and I can verify that Hydrazine can kill you without much work.

However, I believe that there’s a 99.999% chance that it will burn up in the atmosphere.

This sounds like a convenient way to test an ASAT missile.