there was a good link to the video on drudge but it's gone now...
Posted on 02/21/2008 4:29:13 PM PST by SandRat
WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2008 – The missile fired from a U.S. Navy ship in the Pacific Ocean that hit a malfunctioning U.S. reconnaissance satellite late yesterday likely accomplished its goal of destroying the satellite’s toxic fuel tank, a senior U.S. military officer said here today.
Preliminary reports indicate the SM-3 missile struck its primary target, which was a tank full of toxic hydrazine rocket fuel carried aboard the 5,000-pound satellite, Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
“The intercept occurred. … We’re very confident that we hit the satellite,” Cartwright said. “We also have a high degree of confidence that we got the tank.”
Video shown to reporters depicts the satellite exploding at the point of contact with the missile. Cartwright said the visible fireball and the vapor cloud or plume around it suggest that the fuel tank was hit and the hydrazine had burned up.
“The high-definition imagery that we have indicates that we hit the spacecraft right in the area of the tank,” Cartwright said.
However, he added, it probably would take another 24 to 48 hours of sifting through data “to get to a point where we are very comfortable with our analysis that we indeed breached the tank.”
Radar sweeps of the satellite’s debris field thus far show that no parts larger than a football survived the strike, Cartwright said. Post-strike surveillance shows satellite debris falling into the atmosphere above the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, he said. Small remnants are likely to burn up in the atmosphere, never making it to the Earth’s surface.
The U.S. State Department has provided updates on the situation to its embassies around the world, Cartwright noted. There are no reports of debris reaching the Earth, he said, adding that consequence-management crews are on standby to respond to such a circumstance, if required.
The SM-3 missile was launched by the USS Lake Erie, positioned northwest of Hawaii, at 10:26 p.m. EST yesterday, Cartwright said. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is on an overseas trip, gave the go-ahead to fire, Cartwright said.
The missile intercepted the satellite about 153 miles above the Earth, just before it began to enter the atmosphere, Cartwright said. Joint Space Operations Center technicians at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif, confirmed the satalitte’s breakup about 24 minutes later.
The National Reconnaissance Office-managed satellite malfunctioned soon after it was launched in 2006, making it unresponsive to ground control. The satellite, orbiting Earth every 90 minutes or so, was expected to fall to Earth in February or March with its tank of hydrazine intact, possibly endangering human populations.
President Bush directed the Defense Department to engage the satellite just before it entered the atmosphere. U.S. officials decided to shoot down the satellite because of the danger posed by the hazardous hydrazine, Cartwright explained, noting the goal was for the missile to hit and rupture the tank of rocket fuel, causing the hydrazine to burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere, along with debris from the stricken satellite.
“So, you can imagine at the point of intercept last night there were a few cheers from people who have spent many days working on this project,” Cartwright said.
One shot, one kill. What a good day for the Navy and America.
They didn’t nick it either, because it didn’t start hissing, it blew up.
Oh China.....can you hear us now?
Are there any good links to video of the shoot? I checked YouTube but all I found were cheesy animations.
We’ve been told by ignorant leftists for 25 YEARS that this was an impossible feat, like “hitting a bullet with a bullet” — yet counting all the tests from both land and sea, we have done it quite a few times now.
Nice shot! Released Navy footage here:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/video-pentagon.html
Pootie, do you need to change your tighty whities now?
Not only hit it but hit the center..Amazing.
there was a good link to the video on drudge but it's gone now...
Thanks Kolb. Very nice. That initial blast made it look like only particles would be left. It would be good if all of the satellite could now to burn up on reentry.
Good one from news conference on CNN:
Pentagon: Toxic tank was hit
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2008/02/21/pentagon.sat.shoot7a.cnn
“We’ve been told by ignorant leftists for 25 YEARS that this was an impossible feat, like “hitting a bullet with a bullet” — yet counting all the tests from both land and sea, we have done it quite a few times now.”
Actually, we’ve been able to do it since 1985!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT
And with that one shot.
The ICBM becomes obsolete.
Nuclear blackmail is now history.
The only thing left is to build a full system now that it has been qualified.
I never thought contamination was a concern. I thought the shoot down was aimed to prevent it from falling into the hands of the bad guys. That may have been part of it, but now it seems to me anyway that the reason was to show the bad guys that they can’t hit us, at least with a limited number of ICBMs. That is a monumental development for stability, and you can bet the lesson is not lost on Dinajad or Kimmy or Hugo or Senator Reid et al.
Maybe there was never any super secret stuff associated with the satellite at all. I did read someone suggest that the satellite was perhaps capable of tracking subs.
Obviously, a barrage from Russia is probably not containable right now, but think about how far back we pushed Iran’s nuclear missile program with one shot.
We hit a cold bullet with a bullet at over 17,000 mph.
MAD is dead w/o destabilization. Now it’s you fire at us you are dead and we’re not. I like that better. Gives us a little more room to stretch.
But, overall, an amazing feat. Hats off to those smart guys and gals who did it. And to RR who was correct once again.
Yesterday was a magnificent space day for the USA, considering Atlantis, too.
I’m proud of the USA every single day, but this was special and far more significant than the msm admits. I guess that’s ‘cause they were hoping, and assured in their conceited way, that the Navy and its civilian colleagues would fail. One shot! The left is sick about it.
What I just continue to fin awesome is that they were able to choose there point of impact. I am not sure if I am understanding everything right but it is truly amazing.
These folks have a pretty tough straight-forward job to do keeping us safe. Sometimes it’s pretty grim. I’m glad they got this moment to shine and I hope it puts our enemies at pause for a bit...
More likely likely accomplished one of its goals of destroying the satellite’s toxic fuel tank...
Raise a glass to the gipper and Star Wars!
I still wish they’d stop saying “shoot down” - they didn’t shoot down squat. They destroyed it - it was already in a low and decaying orbit, and while this may have hastened that process, “shoot down” is not the right terminology. It’s not a plane being kept aloft by lift from its wings that comes crashing down when hit by a missile - it’s an orbiting object. Only gravity and the drag of the earth’s atmosphere can effectively bring it down.
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