Posted on 02/14/2008 12:09:48 PM PST by mojito
WASHINGTON - President Bush decided to fire a military missile to bring down a broken spy satellite because of the potential danger to people from rocket fuel it is carrying, officials said Thursday.
Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffries, briefing reporters at the Pentagon, did not say when the attempted intercept would be conducted, but the satellite is expected to hit Earth during the first week of March.
Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same briefing that the "window of opportunity" for such a shootdown, presumably to be launched from a Navy ship, will open in the next three or four days and last for seven or eight days. He did not say whether the Pentagon has decided on an exact launch date.
He said a Navy missile known as Standard Missile 3 would be fired in an attempt to intercept the satellite just prior to it re-entering Earth's atmosphere. It would be "next to impossible" to hit the satellite after that because of atmospheric disturbances, Cartwright said.
A second goal, he said, is to directly hit the fuel tank in order to minimize the amount of fuel that returns to Earth.
Cartwright also said that if an initial shootdown attempt fails, a decision will be made whether to take a second shot.
welly good question
Broken satellite will be shot downSorry to say I'm holding my breath on this one
Ping.
Wasn’t that the one that was slung under the belly of an F-15? I heard that worked pretty well.
True. If you hit it head-on over the south Pacific, I think a lot of the chunks would end up deorbiting right there.
Very low -- within a few days of the actual entry, so the chunks will probably decay pretty quickly.
Cascade effects seen in the perspective of space travelling are theoretical possibilities that "space junk" or a satellite destroyed by a meteor will send debris throughout the orbits of most telecommunication satellites destroying them in the process and subsequently sending that debris into all possible orbits, destroying everything in orbit around the earth. It is theorized if this occurs, space flight beyond Earth will become very difficult if not impossible.
Ummm...Let's hope these guys know what they're doing.
Commercial communications satellites are far, far higher.
There is virtually NO chance that the pieces of this will get any where near such satellites.
You’re wrong. This intercept will probably be at lower than 80nm... far below “astros in LEO”
The reason it survives is that there is a whole lot of space in Space... lots more than you apparently believe there is.
I think the fuel is radioactive!
Save money and hire the Chicoms to zap it to pieces.
Is another purpose for this to prevent the imaging equipment from falling into enemy hands? Reminds me of Ice Station Zebra.
“With the debris field so low, it will decay shortly and more completely” if you go to the link in post 17, china’s debris was still in space 11 months later. How short is shortly?
Doesn’t matter, they’re creating a debris hazard. It’s a stupid idea. You have to go THROUGH that altitude to get up and down.
From the story:
"He said a Navy missile known as Standard Missile 3 would be fired in an attempt to intercept the satellite just prior to it re-entering Earth's atmosphere. "
If the dead satellite is hit just before re-entry, it is very unlikely that the impact will add any orbital energy to the pieces. They will all come down, and be more likely to burn up at high altitude. The Chinese ASAT test was at higher altitude, and most of those fragments are still orbiting.
That’s a damn lie. It’s better to leave it intact and let it burn up. Atmospheric heating during reentry is all about mass/surface area ratio. The frictional heating will be much higher on the intact satellite than on the individual pieces. They’re creating more a hazard to people on the ground and in LEO by doing this.
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