Posted on 03/02/2015 7:56:18 PM PST by CMB_polarization
The US Air Force confirmed that the 20-year-old Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight 13 (DMSP-F13) suffered a "catastrophic event".
It shattered into 43 pieces following a sudden temperature spike which triggered the loss of its altitude control.
The event happened on 3 February but the incident has only just came to light following questions from website Space News.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
Your informative post led me to do a little research. It appears that that fence was decommissioned and a new one is being designed, but is not operational. It appears that small objects are trackable in the interim, however.
Thanks for the pointer to this!
Dr Evil didnt get his 10 million freakin’ dollars!
It was a space pit bull.
Programmed to re-calculate all data so that it shows global warming - couldn’t take the lying any more......
Sounds like a sophisticated spy satellite.
When I found a time/date for the event, I knew someone who was not bound by security would have figured this out somewhere. I couldn't find a source for the historical orbit plotting in a brief search, but this commenter seems to have had that info and placed it over the Americas. So no WWIII this week, I guess.
Could be. They have a similar signature on target
“Exactly 43 pieces and only 43? And how do they know that?
That only proves that it was George W. Bushs fault.”
Heh! Nailed it!
You would see the fuel loss telemetry over time
So body sent us a message
“DMSP F13/USA109” Out of service since 2009 according to NASA: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/toolbox/missions/dmsp.html
http://nsidc.org/data/docs/daac/f13_platform.gd.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Meteorological_Satellite_Program
“DMSP 15” is the current model.
If you look at your link and follow back to the guy who has the chart that points to the main explosion happening at 7:15, it appears that the thing had been coming apart for a few hours prior to that time, loosing four major and one minor part prior to rapid disintegration. It likely wasn’t over the U.S. when whatever happened that began the process. https://twitter.com/TSKelso/status/570750412573134848/photo/1
>>Took them a month to fess up to this.<<
Makes you wonder if this was really a “weather” satellite.
Makes you wonder if the reason Clapper said this was because they know it was destroyed and by whom?
Perhaps it had been visited by an X-37 at some time in the past for purpose of an upgrade.
Yes, exactly how DOD described their weapon, China attempting to show they can do the same thing
Or they needed to self-destruct the satellite to foil prying eyes and robotic arms.
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