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US: Broken satellite will be shot down
Yahoo/AP ^ | 2/14/2008 | Lolita Baldor

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.


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aerospace; banglist; fireworks; spacejunk
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Comment #81 Removed by Moderator

Comment #82 Removed by Moderator

To: pgyanke

Glad to see someone understands basic thermodynamics.

The three laws of Thermoeconomics.

1. Heat is work.
2. Work is dollars.
3. Dollars is GOOD!

Get it hot and hit it HARD.

American Art Forge, 35 years of red hot Iron.
Tet68 Prop.


83 posted on 02/14/2008 4:10:13 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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Comment #84 Removed by Moderator

To: mojito; Peanut Gallery; SAMWolf; snippy_about_it; alfa6; Samwise

Heh heh heh bttt


85 posted on 02/14/2008 4:12:33 PM PST by Professional Engineer (www.pinupsforvets.com)
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To: F15Eagle

Hmmm. The Air-Launched Miniature Vehicle?

My understanding when I worked at LockMart was that we don’t have the missile anymore. - since 1987 when the dems killed it for good.
It worked pretty damn well, but the funding was pulled and the USAF dropped the program.

I heard that there was one left, but it couldn’t be operational after 30+ years.


86 posted on 02/14/2008 4:19:25 PM PST by bill1952 (I will vote for McCain if he resigns his Senate seat before this election.)
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To: bill1952

20+ years


87 posted on 02/14/2008 4:23:44 PM PST by bill1952 (I will vote for McCain if he resigns his Senate seat before this election.)
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To: mojito
is this the sort of decision a president makes?

anyway, sounds kinda entertaining.

which band of weirdos speaks up for endangered satellites, anyway?

88 posted on 02/14/2008 4:41:38 PM PST by the invisib1e hand (anyone can be a soldier in peacetime.)
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To: AFPhys

You’d be right if it wasn’t a cloud of particles. And I’m not so worried about THIS specific event as I am about the precedent it sets.

From your knowledge and screen name, you know it’s all about relative velocity. Those particles carry a whole lot of momentum at a relative velocity of only a few hundred meters per second. And it’s all academic at this point, they’re going to do it, and we’ll have to live with the fallout.

I don’t want this to continue, the Chinese did it and it was a really stupid thing, the US doing it again is even worse. Next Russia will hit one of theirs and we’ll have a debris cloud around the planet. So much for moon, Mars and beyond.


89 posted on 02/14/2008 5:23:43 PM PST by AntiKev (Von nichts kommt nichts.)
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Comment #90 Removed by Moderator

To: webschooner
This is great newz, cause this friggin thing was gonna land in my back yard, so I was really concerned about my hound dogs.

Not to mention what that damned thing would have done to your yard. I've been afraid to go outdoors until now.
91 posted on 02/14/2008 5:57:22 PM PST by Jaysun (It's outlandishly inappropriate to suggest that I'm wrong.)
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To: Yo-Yo

Thanks! My ultimate favorite movie is “Armageddon”. :) So, that’s about all I know about this stuff and the “big ass sky”. I do love NASA’s photo of the day, too.
Matt 5:33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ 34 But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.” NIV


92 posted on 02/14/2008 7:13:24 PM PST by huldah1776 ( Worthy is the Lamb)
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To: huldah1776

Speaking of movies...How about movies dealing with space?

Remember SPACE COWBOYS? I think, in that film, astronauts were sent out there to destroy some Russian satellite...

How about a Bond film? In DIE ANOTHER DAY, US fails to destroy the bad guy’s satellite...


93 posted on 02/14/2008 11:18:11 PM PST by L.A.Justice
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To: CodeMasterPhilzar
IMHO the SM-3 is already operational.

But not as an official ASAT.... my only point. You're right about the rest.

There's one other advantage in hitting the satellite, as opposed to a missile target: there's lots of time to track it, and get a very good orbit solution. The SM-3 crews will be able to give a very precise targeting solution prior to launch.

94 posted on 02/15/2008 6:39:38 AM PST by r9etb
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To: Calvin Locke
Does the DoD still use Iridium? I remember they bailed out the consortium when Iridium was going to shut down.

Yes -- they're by far Iridium's biggest customer. Guys in-theater love it.

95 posted on 02/15/2008 6:41:10 AM PST by r9etb
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To: AFPhys
Nothing as high as Indium is remotely in danger

Indium? Work with solar arrays, do you...?

96 posted on 02/15/2008 6:47:08 AM PST by r9etb
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To: the invisib1e hand
is this the sort of decision a president makes?

Oh, heck yes. This is the sort of decision that only the president should make. It's got huge international ramifications.

97 posted on 02/15/2008 6:49:40 AM PST by r9etb
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To: AFPhys
Nothing as high as Indium is remotely in danger from this rapidly decaying very-LEO satellite or its even more rapidly decaying fragments. Neither is the Shuttle or the ISS.

Not "Indium" (atomic number 49). Iridium (atomic number 77).

Iridium was so named because the first proposals envisioned 77 satellites in low earth polar orbits (seven planes, with 11 sats in each). It didn't work out that way. Iridium chose six planes, with 11 sats in each, for a total of 66. "Dysprosium" is not nearly as sexy a name as "Iridium" (It sounds like a acid-reflux med). So, Iridium it remained.

The junk propelled by explosion or impact won't necessarily decay all that fast. As one big object, it was a self-contained trash bin which proved no threat to other orbiting objects. But as a shotgun blast of debris it could produce exaggerated orbits of sufficient apogee to take it through the orbital paths of Iridium sats. Probability of impact: P > 0. I would have preferred P == 0.

98 posted on 02/15/2008 11:15:37 AM PST by nonsporting
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To: nonsporting

LOL... oops... wrong element... mind blank... does not change my argument, though, as the more eccentric the orbit of a given fragment, the more quickly that orbit will decay - thus my “100 day risk” suggestion for people to calculate/ estimate.

I am convinced that there is a tendency for people to associate this destruction of a satellite at very low, and dying orbit, with the very different situation of the Chinese killing a satellite at 500miles AGL, in a very stable orbit. The average fragment in that case would remain in orbit for many years... which is definitely not true for this case.

I was not aware of the origin of the Iridium name. Thanks for that story.


99 posted on 02/15/2008 11:47:48 AM PST by AFPhys ((.Praying for President Bush, our troops, their families, and all my American neighbors..))
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To: Professional Engineer

This is going to be fun to watch, as long as it doesn’t land on my house if they miss!


100 posted on 02/15/2008 2:50:36 PM PST by snippy_about_it (The FReeper Foxhole. America's history, America's soul.)
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