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Defunct Spy Satellite Falling From Orbit
dnormant, among other readers, sent us word that a US spy satellite has lost power and propulsion and could hit the Earth in late February or March. Government officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret. None of the coverage speculates on how big the satellite is, but Wikipedia claims that US spy satellites in the KH-11 class, launched up to the mid-90s, are about the size of the Hubble — which is 13 meters long and weighs over 11,000 kg. "The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down... A senior government official said that lawmakers and other nations are being kept apprised of the situation."
Those stories about telling what brand of cigarettes a person was smoking from space seem a lot more plausible.
Not just answers, the correct questions.
OK, someone do the math:
How thick of a tinfoil hat would I have to put on top of my house to protect it from a 12-ton satellite?
Don't Tread on Me
No joke. I had no idea they were that massive.
Do they use solar panels for power? Seems to me that they'd want to keep as low a profile as possible, which would eliminate the large profile created by solar panels.
Which leaves radioisotope thermoelectric generation as the power source - which would mean there's plutonium (or another highly radioactive material) in these things.
Yikes...
When Skylab hit the cow, the American government refused to compensate.
The probability of this satellite landing on Osama bin Laden is probably higher than the probability of him being caught within the next couple of months. It's good to see the U.S. finally cracking down on that slimeball!
I'm guessing these things don't just shut down on their own. So, readers of /., which is more likely the cause?
1. Focused EMP from the surface?
or
2. It was running Windows.
Anybody want my mod points?
You think nobody thought of this scenario before shooting a billion dollar satellite into space? Look what happened a number of years ago in Florida when a rocket carrying a communications satellite exploded before it left the atmosphere. http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9808/27/rocket.blast2/index.html
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Actually, those hazardous materials were all natural and already in the ground: Meteor Crash in Peru Caused Mysterious Illness. Noxious fumes created by hot meteor smashing into arsenic-tainted water.
That will be USA 193 (06-057A, #29651). This is it's current orbit:
USA 193
1 29651U 06057A 08022.26925691 0.00105000 00000-0 21306-3 0 07
2 29651 58.5247 160.3977 0003288 53.6760 306.3240 15.98950761 06
Lowest point is about 275 km above earth surface currently.
This under the right conditions is an easy to see object: it can reach magnitude
+1 and because of its low orbit is very fast, spectacular to see.
source: Marco Langbroek
picture in orbit:
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/satcom_transits/USA193Sepbw1.jpg
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/satcom_transits/193bw.jpg
Note, no solar panels.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
How much is the warning of it having dangerous materials aboard meant to protect us and how much is it meant to keep people from being too inquisitive about the top secret spy satellite?
Furthermore, what sort of liability applies for a rogue space satellite if it crashes into your house? I'm sure the government will pay for it just to keep the media at bay, but still, an interesting tort question. I'd assume the government would be strictly liable. -TwoHundredOK
Comparative Characteristics of Imagery Satellites
Example: The Lacrosse satellite (KH-12 is the other designation) weighs 14-16 tons.
"Lacrosse and Onyx are the code names for the United States' National Reconnaissance Office terrestrial radar imaging reconnaissance satellite. While not officially confirmed by the NRO or anybody in the U.S. government, there is widespread evidence to confirm its existence."
"Due to overruns, the cost of the Lacrosse-1 radar reconnaissance satellite launched in 1988 from the Space Shuttle exceeded $1 billion. In the opinion of experts, it was designed, above all, to search for mobile launchers for Soviet ICBM's and track strategic weapon systems beyond staging bases. The radar images were transmitted to the processing center via TDRS repeaters located under the management of NASA and deployed in a geostationary orbit. The Lacrosse-2 was launched in 1991 using a Titan-4 booster rocket from the Western Missile Test Range, which made it possible to increase the orbit inclination and, consequently, the zone of coverage from 57 to 68 degrees."
From Yahoo!
Pike, director of the defense research group GlobalSecurity.org, estimated that the spacecraft weighs about 20,000 pounds and is the size of a small bus. He said the satellite would create 10 times less debris than the Columbia space shuttle crash in 2003.
Now, um, how did the darn thing "loose power?..." Bet that's a secret...
In 2002, officials believe debris from a 7,000-pound science satellite smacked into the Earth's atmosphere and rained down over the Persian Gulf, a few thousand miles from where they first predicted it would plummet.
Anyone wanna take bets on this one hitting Iran?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Having read the article, it would seem that the government is far more concerned about "loosing state secrets" than loosing lives due to the uncontrolled fall of this 12-tonne satellite. If it falls into a heavily populated area like, say, New York or London, those killed by it could care less about some silly and inane "secrets" that are over 10 years out of date, anyway.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
John added the solar panels in the first image.
see the following note from him:
http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Jan-2008/0204.html
Hardly surprising, since "in the ocean" means 80% of the Earth's surface...
To put this in perspective, consider that over thirty thousand meteorites have been found on the ground. There's one in Oregon that weighs sixteen tons; the rate of impacts, found and unfound, has been estimated at 500 per day worldwide.
Know anybody who's been hit?
Actually, a few people -- a very few -- have. The surface of the Earth is a big place, and not a very big fraction of it is covered by people.
rj
KH-11 series spacecraft were called the Key Hole satellites - they were the first large reconnaissance spacecraft to send images directly to earth; previous spy satellites used film return (clumsy, slow, and unreliable). KH-11's used CCDs - quite advanced for a system developed in the late 1970's.
The seven KH-11 spacecraft had primary mirrors of 2.3 to 2.4 meters. The system provided an ultimate ground resolution between 15 to 50 cm at closest approach (perigee); actual resolution was quite a bit worse.
There's no nuclear battery on board -- power came from 11 unfolded solar panels (which, on the first Key Hole satellites didn't provide quite enough power during downlinks!). I assume the main danger to earthlings is due to the reentry of the main mirror. Since the KH-11s are in polar orbits, the debris could come down anywhere on earth, with a one-in-four chance of hitting land.
The KH-11 spy satellites were developed in parallel with the Hubble Space Telescope, and the same contractors worked on both. In fact, the KH-11 uses much the same hardware (carbon-graphite support system, front door hatch system, data-relay dish through communications satellites). Because of the secrecy surrounding the KH-11 development, the Space Telescope project often saw similar secrecy. Indeed, astronomers were discouraged (or barred) from much of the engineering of the Hubble Space Telescope.
If the satellite was Russian and had nukes then we would have a Space Cowboy Situation
It's the contents of the onboard hard drive that are the hazardous materials. If certain folks find you in possession of that data, well, lets say Gitmo would be a holiday.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
"U.S. NRO spy satellite may be total loss
... that historically is known to be good," said the
Wed Mar 7, 2007 10:17 AM IST
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials are likely to declare a Lockheed
Martin Corp. spy satellite a total loss after efforts to restore its
ability to communicate failed repeatedly over the past three months,
two defense officials told Reuters on Tuesday.
The experimental L-21 classified satellite, built for the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) at a cost of hundreds of millions of
dollars, was launched successfully on Dec. 14 but has been out of
touch since reaching its low-earth orbit.
Limited data received from the satellite indicated that its on-board
computer tried rebooting several times, but those efforts failed, said
one official, who is knowledgeable about the program and spoke on
condition of anonymity.
The satellite carried sophisticated cameras to take high-resolution
pictures and test equipment intended for use on the broader Future
Imagery Architecture (FIA) program, in which both Boeing Co. and
Lockheed are involved.
Its failure raises questions about the schedule for the already-much-
delayed FIA program, which was due to launch a first satellite in two
to three years, analysts said.
One of the defense officials acknowledged the satellite's failure was
"not helpful."
"It's part of an overarching architecture. When you're trying to move
forward on several dimensions, it can't help accomplish those goals,"
the official said.
The other official said he expected schedule adjustments, but no major
delays, as a result of the NRO satellite failure.
"It might impact the schedule for introduction of new technologies,"
he added.
Another government official said he was unaware of any changes to the
FIA program as a result of the satellite issue.
Lockheed, prime contractor for the experimental NRO satellite,
declined to comment. The NRO, which designs, builds and operates
reconnaissance satellites for the U.S. military and intelligence
communities, also had no comment.
One of the defense officials said the issue with the satellite
involved the computer that runs it, not the new sensors that it was
meant to test.
"The failure has nothing to do with anything new. It happened with a
set of components
official.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer with the Harvard- Smithsonian Center
For Astrophysics, said the satellite's software problems raised
questions about the adequacy of testing and oversight by the
contractors and the Air Force.
"The question is why was this software failure not caught in ground
test before launch," McDowell said, noting that oversight was
particularly challenging in classified programs.
He said the satellite's software woes were reminiscent of those
experienced by the Mars rover named Spirit, which was out of
communication for more than two weeks after it landed on Mars in
January 2004 because its flash disk kept filling up, prompting the
computer system to crash repeatedly.
Engineers finally solved the problem by sending a command to the
computer to clear the disk, enabling a successful rebooting of the
system, he said."
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.space.policy/2007-03/msg00261.html
We know who you are. Do not attempt to leave your house, turn off your computer, or unplug your microwave. We will be there shortly to bring you into custody.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
It's a function of things like the heat of ablation, suface area and mass relationships, and where in the spacecraft the object begins.
Rocks like to break up into lots of little things with reasonable heating areas and masses; satellites not so much. Ti bolts don't like to go because of low heating area and high ablation temps. Ti Fuel tanks don't because they again don't ablate, have high area to low mass which makes it less likely to go because they come down slower, and the rest of the sat has to go before it starts to heat. The mirrors and lenses are similar.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
Know anybody who's been hit?
Not personally, but the BBC does.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
They don't need to blow it of the sky - it's already coming down somewhere. The only potential advantage to shooting it down would be to scatter the parts and maybe make more of them burn up on re-entry. Even then, the heavy metal parts (control moment gyros and deeply imbedded boxes) are still probably going to make it. It might be hypothetically possible but exceptionally difficult considering there probably won't be an good way of knowing where it will be to any degree of accuracy. The only reason you know where the shuttle is coming down is because you did a maneuver to make it come down. If you shot it down in orbit you create a debris field with even less chance of knowing when and where.
Realistically, there's exceedingly little danger to anyone on the ground. MOST spacecraft launched into low orbits, upper stages, etc, have burned in uncontrolled over the years, with negligible effect, even Skylab which was far larger.
BTW the likely "hazardous" materials are no different from the shuttle - hydrazine, nitrogen tetroxide and maybe a high-pressure gas bottle or two. If it has an RTG, the only danger is that its going to make it do the ground intact and become another heavy projectile. Typically they are designed to do exactly that, just so they have no chance of releasing radioactive materials. The chances are nearly *zero* that the containment will fail. It's more likely that a guy will get hit by a meteorite on the way to pick up his lotto winnings. The shuttle came down over the south-central US with no injuries on the ground, and it has 5x the parts.
Brett
Also, that flash of light you saw in the sky was not a U.F.O. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and refracted the light from Venus.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Most insurance cover specifically includes statements that any space debris (including falling satellites) will not be covered.
So it's every geek for themselves!
I believe the clause was written in years ago when Sputnik fell to Earth. That goes for meteors, blue ice, rocket stages and acts of God (whatever that means).
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Launched Dec 26 2006, had orbital control problems or else was launched into a very unusual orbit for an intelligence platform. (Open info in the internet).
Given that its NRO and that size, I'd guess its a multi-sensor platfrom.
Pretty sad - those things run about $2 Billion. And you can bet that its absence will leave holes in intelligence coverage and really contrain intelligence gathering due to restriction of resources.
Give that plutonium power sources are pretty robust - few moving parts, but low earth orbit stuff doesnt need that - solar and batteries are usually sufficient. So its likely solar powered.
Seems the NRO has not learned to diversify, still putting its eggs in one big basket. That and that the Aerospace companies that sell them to the Govt only know how to make One Big Rocket instead of managing constellations of more numerous but smaller and chaeper satellites. (Pet Peeve of mine).
I bet they had solar arrays, but from amateur images there werent any deployed at any time. That would be the reason why the satellite died - something broke in the solar arrays or deployment process. Since its that new of a satellite (2006), I bet they had equipment failures from the start if its power that is the issue.
Tinfoil hat time: Take all of my above speculation (I used to work in Aerospace and the military) with a grain of salt - they could be using "power" as a cover some classified event that trashed the satellite, like a collision with junk from the Chinese anti-missle mess. That would be very politically inconvenient for the Bush administration right now, and this would be a nice excuse to make that problem go away.
Whatever the case is, the US intelligence community is out 2 billion, and a lot of capacity that was supposed to come online is not there. Could make for problems.
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Please refer to the following chart, to avoid misidentification of "unidentified" flying objects.
https://freeinternetpress.com/mirrors/usaf/airforce-id-chart.jpg
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Just as an FYI, "nuclear powered" tends to mean "Plutonium." That was true for Soviet satellites. There wasn't much info floating around for the keyhole class satellites (which this one presumably is, since it's prefixed 'KH'). But it's a good bet that it had one.
I'd like to think that the designers, when they designed the satellite, realized that re-entering a chunk of Plutonium was a bad idea and designed a mechanism to eject it in an escape orbit. Hopefully it's now-uncontrolled orbit is due to the ejection of said nuclear material.
BTW, I like the way the article mentioned "beryllium" as the hazardous material. Beryllium and copper used to be used to make golf clubs, and you can still find BeCu clubs on eBay today. I highly doubt that anyone would issue a press release warning about 10 tons of old Ping BeCu clubheads hurtling towards us from space. But it's fun to read nonetheless.
Better YouTube link: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YD14UGCtRRc
IIRC the skylab death in australia was from someone who had a heart attack after dreaming they were being hit by it!
Wait. Check that. If I'm asleep and horizontal, I probably take up more like 12 square feet. That increases the chance of having 20,000 tons of heavy metal land on me to 1 in 457,531,937,280,000. In other words, if you lie down, you are increasing the chances of being hit by a giant spy satellite by an order of magnitude. I don't know about you guys, but I'll be sleeping standing up from now on.
Small consolation, I suppose, if it lands 10 feet West of you and the shock wave turns you into a fine mist.
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