US military satellite explodes above Earth

The Telegraph ^ | 02 Mar 2015 | Matthew Sparkes

[muffaletaman]

A US military satellite exploded after detecting an unexplained “sudden spike in temperature”, sending dozens of chunks of debris tumbling into different orbits around Earth. ===== Air Force Space Command confirmed to SpaceNews.com that the “catastrophic event” came after “a sudden spike in temperature” was detected, followed by “an unrecoverable loss of attitude control”.

While operators were deciding how to “render the vehicle safe” they detected a debris cloud which indicated that the satellite had been destroyed.

[dfwgator]

Commence, “Operation VACU-SUCK”!

[JRios1968]

Video so far

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTx_qTwQqjU

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Inquiry reveals the wires in the center fuel tank shorted out causing the explosion.

[JRios1968]

[ProtectOurFreedom]

They blasted one of their own weather satellites with a kinetic kill vehicle in 2007.

2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test.

It left behind a huge debris cloud threatening other satellites and, at one point, came close to the Space Station. The Russians claim the space junk destroyed a small Russian satellite in 2013.

[kidd]

Russia/China/NK/Iran
testing the waters on an old satellite to see
- how we respond
- if we can find out who did it
- how we find out who did it

[USMCPOP]

Lasers

[GOYAKLA]

Winner, by a Mile!

[buffaloguy]

Most likely it was us. may have been something special such as aircraft mounted lasers.

[fidelis]

[Georgia Girl 2]

Exactly. Laser. My first thought too.

[1_Rain_Drop]

Spock did it.

[VideoDoctor]

An exercise in how to create “space junk.”

[tcrlaf]

This may be related:

Conflict News 4 hours ago
BREAKING: Iran’s Fajr satellite which was recently launched into orbit blew up in space 5 days ago, acc. to unnamed sources-

Iranian Satellite supposedly blows up four days ago, then one of ours blows up yesterday???

[SteveH]

then the ockham’s razor would seem to argue for a random equipment failure in contrast to a deliberate act (friend or foe)... (?)

[OldMissileer]

Malfunction in the attitude control system? Hypergolic fuel and oxidizer combined outside of the thrust chambers to destroy the craft?

[tanknetter]

Most likely it was us. may have been something special such as aircraft mounted lasers.

Doubtful.

An explosion would create a large debris field, basically think of it as a massive flak burst. It would threaten all sorts of other orbiting satellites, including our own.

The only reason why we'd do something like this is if the satellite's as-is state posed a hazard to other orbiting objects, or ground-based objects that could be hit in the event of a deorbit (like that one the USN shot down years back).

[Ozark Tom]

Mossad saying “Knock-Knock”?

[steve86]

"An explosion would create a large debris field"

The explosion has caused at least 43 pieces of debris to scatter into orbit, which are now being tracked by the US Air Force.

[Jet Jaguar]

Thanks. Weird stuff.