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US To Shoot Down Dying Satellite
A user writes "US officials say that the Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March. We discussed the device's decaying orbit late last month. The Associated Press has learned that the option preferred by the Bush administration will be to fire a missile from a U.S. Navy cruiser, and shoot down the satellite before it enters Earth's atmosphere. 'A key concern ... was the debris created by Chinese satellite's destruction -- and that will also be a focus now, as the U.S. determines exactly when and under what circumstances to shoot down its errant satellite. The military will have to choose a time and a location that will avoid to the greatest degree any damage to other satellites in the sky. Also, there is the possibility that large pieces could remain, and either stay in orbit where they can collide with other satellites or possibly fall to Earth.'"
Is this really anything else? The US is willing to protect it's secrets, China was trying to ensure they could protect theirs. Both are sovereign nations with the technology and ability to make these decisions.
The only way issues like this will ever be resolved is by allowing some intra-national body to have either approval or veto powers, but nobody wants to be told what they can/can't do.
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
Since this is a severely decayed orbit I would suspect most debris to reenter within the same timeframe or shortly thereafter, 1-2 weeks. I also doubt it will create any debris fields in a useful orbit. Anyway, the only reason the military would do this in the first place is to ensure a complete destruction of the spacecraft. Break it up into small pieces beforehand and the reentry will take care of the rest. Otherwise, why bother! Or target practice?
Iraq billions
It seems to me that there's no real reason to "shoot down" this satellite, except as a test/demonstration of our ability to shoot down satellites (not necessarily our own)...
____
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The reson we are doing this is obvious - to demonstrate to the world (and the Chinese) that was have functional ASAT capability.
This space available.
We could send up a group of octogenarian actors in a shuttle... whadya mean it's already been done!
Host a tournament based on Missile Commando or any game similar to that.
:)
The Winner gets to choose when and where to shoot the missle
Check out Unsealed: Whispers of Wisdom! http://unsealed.k3rnel.net It's an action-RPG about Open Sourcerers.
Military: Sir, there is a satellite and it's slowly falling to earth
Bush: 'kay
Military: It poses no real threat, it will probably burn up on reentry...
Bush:'Kay
Military: It was a secret spy satellite...
Bush:What? Spy?
Military:It will look real pretty if we blow it up sir...
Bush: OooOooOoo Pretty... Kay, where do I sign to see the pretty boom boom?!
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
This satellite was never able to communicate to the ground. Its orbit was never finished off, which is why it decayed so much as to reenter the atmosphere after 15 months after launch. If they shoot this satellite down, the pieces will still almost all re-enter. The main reason for shooting it down, more than likely is to make sure the fuel doesn't make it past the very upper atmosphere, as well as to ensure that no one unscrupulous gets any technology. The kinetic energy delivered by the missile won't overcome the energy needed to kick the debris back into orbit, so there won't be a debris field.
You'd think for the hundreds of millions of dollars these things cost, you'd think that they'd start working on trying to catch them. Like the old stuart smalley joke: Why don't they just hook the parachute to the plane? Hello?!?
do we even have these weapons? I know an ASAT weapon was launched from an f16 (i think) a number of years ago, but thought that was the end of "actual" product development...
If they're going to the trouble of launching a rocket to intercept the satellite, why don't they build a small booster which could attach to the satellite and perform a controlled de-orbit? This would allow them to choose the point of re-entry to protect whatever secrets may be on board.
There is far too much space junk up there already. Blowing the satellite into a million pieces doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do. I suspect the US simply wants to demonstrate and test its own anti-satellite system.
next time they build a satellite it would be a good idea to put a self destruct in it that can be activated remotely, cheaper and more reliable than shooting missiles at it...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I seem to remember reading a few different ideas for bringing satellites down that did not involve explosives. This seems like a great time to test one of them
Bearded Dragon
Nice cheap clean burnup, or expensive messy shooting? It worries me that our government even debated this, let alone reached the conclusion they did.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
PEW! PEW! PEW! PKSSHHHHHH!
thats right, my disintegration ray would sound like a toy gun you can find at the dollar store.
Maybe instead they should just find a way to push the satellites out of orbit into space maybe even toward to sun for future disposals? Otherwise we're gonna need to come up with either much stronger material to not get damaged by space debris, or make some big magnet that can scoop it up out of orbit.
Maybe the U.S. or other satellite owners should start storing a container full of material which will help the satellite incinerate upon reentry.
This way you don't have to spend the money in time and materials to try and blow up your own satellite. That just seems inefficient to me. I bet the money spent in time to plan/test/implement this scenario is surprising.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
I don't really care if the thing falls out of the sky and hits something. Just as long as its not my house. Why are we spending time and money to destroy something that will be destroyed when it hits anyway. I guess it is because we have the ability. I would however like to know when and where the satellite will be so that I can watch this explosion in space for myself.
Maybe they can shoot at it with the Navy's new rail gun. http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_RailGuns,,00.html
about the hydrazine fuel onboard, and the hazard it would pose to anyone on the ground, as if the fuel tanks would survive the breakup and atmospheric heating of the re-entry.
Looks like a great chance for the Bush regime to pull off an ASAT test, with a ready-made cover story to deflect blame for all the space junk it will create.
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"Rather than let the thing burn up in the atmosphere they have to prove that they are willing and able to blow stuff up and leave earth orbit even more polluted."
Wonder how long till Al Gore's next book?
You know, if the pentagon REALLY wanted to come across as bad ass, they wouldn't have told anyone it was a bad satellite. Then we could show the world we'll shoot down our own satellites just cause we can. Like a diplomatic "Don't you know i'm locco, esse?"
THL phish sticks
Why not use those thrusters to drop it into the ocean at a planned location with the Navy there to pick it up on splashdown.
Kind of hard to do that when the master CPU fails on boot-up, which is the whole reason why something needs to be done about it. It is literally out of control.
Hmmm. Maybe that's the whole point. It's an interesting message, "we can shoot down a satellite if we need to". For the Chinese, if not for the Russians as well.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
What the 'real' reason for shooting the satellite down is. It could be the risk of the toxic thruster fuel "hydrazine" not burning up an injuring someone, or, maybe because the "sophisticated and secret imaging sensor" might not burn up totally, or, maybe the U.S. just wants China to know they aren't the only ones who can shoot down a satellite. My vote is for the 3rd guess.
The satellite was DOA on launch. It can't be communicated with, which is pretty much necessary to command it to fire it's thrusters. It's orbit decayed in under 15 months.
It's already coming down, isn't it? Wouldn';t they be shooting it UP?
That makes a better headline anyway, "US To Shoot Up".
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
So the missile hits the sattelite and explodes. It's possible that an important section could be propelled into new orbit. The Chinese could send up a special team to rescue this section and acquire secret technology. Bad idea to "shoot" this sattelite, because not all the pieces may fall down.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Did you even read the linked article? The satellite has lost all contact. It has rocket fuel, yes, but there is no way to communicate with it and tell it to fire the thrusters. As for the Navy picking it up, that is logistically a pain in the ass. Even when you can control the splashdown, you can get it to within a few hundred square miles. (lots of variance in air temperature, density, and wind) By the time a boat or helicopter could get to the actual crash site, it would be several thousand feet below the surface of the water. (which i'm sure the govt prefers...) Rocket boosters they pick up, but only because they are specifically designed to float.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Cheap shot, I know, but was it running Windows?
There is a war going on for your mind.
hey destroy it. before it hits my new house. http://craniusmaximus.com/cmblog/broken-satellite-will-be-shot-down-by-the-us-hydrazine-is-toxic-great
While it would be a nice demonstration of ASAT capability, I would think that if the US really has the capability that it would be better to keep it secret. Why tip your hand?
If it is a matter of scaring their "enemies"*, they already have enough to be scared of... and they still cause trouble. If the test is successful, why give them a demo of what you would actually do so they have real world ideas of how to make counter-measures?
*enemies the US really has to worry about couldn't make a sputnik with present technologies.
Maybe it's for the War on the innocent in the middle east or for the Staged Terror attacks on US Citizens. we don't know wet, but we can all agree, it's for no good!
Watch Police State 3: Total Enslavement
If you've got the opportunity to shoot down a useless satellite, cause a nice pretty boom, play with some really cool tech, cause no real harm and get away with it, I'd do it, too...
And I'd probably have a similar response to your hypothetical Bush... muhahaha... boom boom!
Yes sir, can you try typing Ctrl-Alt-Delete? Oh, that didn't work? Hmmmm, can you try turning the power off and back on again? No? Well, I'm afraid we are just going to (trouble)shoot it remotely from one of our Tech Support Cruisers.... The NEW world of Tech Support
Don't fear the penguins
I do. China was the one who broke the unwritten rule not to militarize space. China shot down that satellite for one reason only: to show the US that if need be, our spy satellites would be toast. There's no reason to shoot down a satellite. It would have to be HUGE for it not to burn up in the atmosphere or even for something to be left for forensics. We, as the World, are now headed down the path of wars being fought in space - no thanks to China.
Don't forget, China is an evil communist regime.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
It's a good idea to synchronise a test of a missile with the thing coming apart anyway !
'Look ! We hit it ! Honest !'
"Just because someone disagrees with you it doesn't mean they are smarter then you. The converse is true too."
What, if someone's smarter than me it doesn't mean they disagree? Or is it that if someone agrees with me, it DOES mean they're smarter? I don't get it.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
Better yet, build it out of something flammable (or as much as possible). Like magnesium. Light weight and self immolating.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
... To notice that the "preferred" solution to any problem placed before George Bush is to launch an attack against it?
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Has anybody considered the chance that the satellite has hazardous* materials on-board? I don't really subscribe to the conspiracy theorist weekly, but nobody else mentioned it so I thought I'd bring it up. *specifically Nuclear, but I'm sure we can imagine something equally awful.
Would there be a way for engineers to install a self-destruct capacity that is independant of the other communication equipment AND is reasonably secure? Granted nothing is fail-safe, but it's an additional layer of protection if all else fails. I was thinking this would be an obvious solution to future problems, but then again we don't want someone figuring out that signal/code/whatever and blowing up our satellites for us.
We wouldn't just have a satalite falling but a missile as well.
I must be missing something. The satellite is FALLING. We're going to shoot it DOWN?!?!
Take off every 'sig' for great justice.
... I posted basically the same thing and was modded troll.
:)
Maybe it was just the way I said it
He's not worried about rocket fuel or demonstrating power. He's looking at the countdown on his presidency and he is realizing, "Hmm... I only have 11 months to blow up something again... let's do it in space this time..." It's the international equivalent of putting an M2 in the toilet.
I thought it was obvious, but none of the posters so far seem to have picked up on it. This is a further test of the ballistic missile defense program we've been spending $$$ for the last decade. In particular, the SM-3 Aegis Missile Defense System. One of the bonuses is this will be testing the missile under less strictly defined conditions.
The program has been in the development and test phase since about 2000, and undergoing tests of increasing difficulty, but always under predefined conditions. The tests are also expensive to orchestrate, typically involving several naval vessels, and a lot of ground support from both the navy and contractors, a lot of documentation, and a target missile that itself probably costs several million dollars. Here they've got a target that won't behave as predictably and costs nothing (well sort of...It's a spy satellite that failed to reach the proper orbit). I'm not sure they even know when or where it will come down yet.
This isn't necessarily a good demonstration of our ability to shoot down satellites. The officially released specs say it has a maximum altitude of 160 km. Most satellites orbit higher than that. However, the actual performance is classified and probably somewhat greater.
It's also not something new. We tested anti-satellite weapons in the 80's, although those are now past their shelf life and the response time was slow. In the 60's we developed a system called Nike Zeus that had an altitude ceiling of about 300 km. It wasn't accurate enough to directly hit a ballistic missile or satellite to achieve a kinetic kill like the SM-3 does, but with a 40 kiloton nuclear warhead, that didn't much matter. It was never tested with a live warhead and it would have been messy to use (damages anything else nearby, terrible EM interference on the ground, etc), but it was something.
it would be really hard for the Navy to pick it up if it crashed into North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, etc...
Which blind Freddy can see is the reason to blow the thing into hopefully small enough chunks to all burn up before it lands in someone else's backyard. The US doesn't need to show China that "it can too", that's low reward (China already knows they can) and high risk (missing would be embarrassing).
It's arms race all over again a'la cold war, just as russian president Vladimir Putin said only couple of days ago. Funny thing, offically no side has declared who is their enemy but in the shadows hardball is being played already.
I have a very bad feeling about this, hopefully things won't get out of hand somewhere. In short timeframe, many politically hot subjects are coming to table. If those happen to come in very quick succession things might not cool down enough so pressure keeps piling up. This time we only have many more players so it's more complicated and harder to keep under control with traditional means.
Oh well, in couple of weeks we all are much wiser: how russia is going to react on kosovo independence declaration (this sunday?) will be a decisive moment, it will show how things will come.
For a supposedly technical site, it seems very few Slashdotters are familiar with the tecnichal issues - or even bother to try. Rants before facts seems to be the motto.
This is very unlikely to add to the space junk problem - because this bird is in a decaying orbit. You further reduce the chances by waiting as late as possible (when the bird has been greatly slowed). You further reduce the risks by arranging your intercept geometry such that few (or no) pieces are boosted towards or into stable orbits.
It's not nearly as simple as "oh n0es, bl0w1ng stuffs up 1n spac3 m3ans mor3 spac3 junk !!11!!!1111!!111".
With a boiling point of 114C, I'd imagine the bulk of the hydrazine would be gone well before the thing hit the ground. This is about destroying whatever's on the satellite and showing off ASAT capability.
As for the PR damage of killing whoever comes across the fuel, after the whole Iraq war thing, I think it can be conclusively and uncontroversially stated that one thing the Bush administration doesn't give two shits about is bad PR.
I've often wondered what aliens might think if they were to visit earth and see us shooting missles at our own satellites as means of getting them down. On one side of the coin, we might look really badass.
If only there was a shuttle nearby to pick it up on their way home....
Now the next (il?)logical step for the military would be to deploy and test a missile that can shoot down a missile headed for a satellite.
A much better idea would be to build a missile that has the ability to be launched from earth or a ship at sea that can fly to an intercept orbit, get close enough to shoot a tethered harpoon into the dead satellite (virtually all satellites's housings are very thin metal to save weight, and could be punctured readily by a harpoon) and then the missile can slowly fire maneuvering thrusters to gently drag itself and its captive satellite down to a calculated de-orbit/re-entry window so as to control where on the Earth they will crash land.
The two shoot-downs are not equivalent, which of course won't prevent agenda-driven comparisons...
I Say, We Take Off And Nuke It From Air, It's The Only Way To Be sure.
I Know I slaughtered it but i had to adapt it
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"We're sorry, Hillary. We promise that next time we will make all our super-secret spy satellites user-serviceable...preferably with inexpensive parts from Radio Shack."
Yours,
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Life imitates art? Or I guess in this case, Ace Combat 5.
What, if someone's smarter than me it doesn't mean they disagree? Or is it that if someone agrees with me, it DOES mean they're smarter? I don't get it. It just means that you can't measure intelligence by somebody's opinion.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When China does it, it means that we are evil and war-mongering. Now what do you have to say about the Americans doing the same thing? Just goes to show that the Cold War lives on.
The Space Shuttle is up in orbit at the moment, why not chase the satellite to capture it?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I'm curious.
Who would be accountable for damages on my satellite if any piece of the exploding satellite hits mine?
What if some big chunk of it falls on top of my car/house?
Is there any legislation on this?
Thanks
The infamous Oregon Exploding Whale seemed like a good idea at the time, but instead coated all onlookers in rotting blubber - while still leaving significant portions of the carcass at ground zero.
Blowing something up, just because you can, doesn't make the problem go away. It leaves a lot of the original problem, PLUS a huge mess - and a big stink.
Makes sense to me. I was thinking the same thing.
The shot will occur on the edge, not in high orbit. What will happen is that nearly all of the parts will simply burn up in the next orbit. OTH, China was practicing on a much higher old weather satellites. It was a message to the west that China is able to take out our spy sats. Of course, that material will be up their for decades to their much higher orbit.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
if we miss.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
The original docs asy that they have a plan to shoot it down and may execute the plan (ie. we know how to do it and we might do it). That is very different from saying that they do actually plan to shoot it down or that they actually will shoot it down.
Please editors, USA Today make fuccups like that. Please get things right.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
a half ton of molten glass is not gonna come boiling in off the lanai and ruin my mojito.
But, imagine the shit the USA will have to eat if it spoils some poor mongolian's tub of yak butter or far worse, inadvertently takes the head off Chavez.
NO DECAPITATIONS FOR OIL!
Prudence says, shoot 'er down.
IANARS, but I'm guessing that the parties involved have much more pressing concerns when designing satellites. Such as weight, which translates directly into cost. And as to the grandparent's idea of pushing things into the sun... I think it would require much less energy (again, cost) to just blow it up.
- The solar max does not have much in way of secret equipment. Nearly all is known. OTH, the spy bird is highly secret (though it appears that a number of leaks have been occurring over the last couple of decades).
- The solar max is STILL UNDER CONTROL. OTH, the spy bird is not. There is no way to tell it to plunge into the atmosphere at such and such a place and such and such an angle.
Keep in mind, that America (as does Russia, China, UK, France, and others) de-orbits spy sats regularly. There have been some that have also been put into much higher orbits due to issues with spreading contaminates (read radiation).I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It must be a flexing of military muscles because if there we truely concerned there is a shuttle floating around up there right now that could pick that thing up on the way back down. I understand there is a limited fuel supply and all. But if they seriously thought of this as anything more than a showcase of our big guns they would tell the shuttle to grab it on the next pass.
Perhaps, if they blow up the missile just in front of the satellite they can control the de-orbit so it comes down in a location that is convenient for the NSA to retrieve.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
You'd think NASA would deploy some sort of space tractor up in orbit to move things around in cases such as this. It would also provide good practice, should we need to move a large asteroid out of our way some day. ...I wonder how much fuel such a tractor would consume.
Your posted reminded me of the Mir/Taco Bell stunt. I wonder if we'll get free tacos this time? Do I even want a free taco?
Help find a cure for cancer!
I think the Navy just wants to try out their new railgun. :P
~Petaris "The world is open. Are you?"
I'm sure it has some sort of self-destruct system, but from what I understand they aren't able to communicate with the satellite. I don't think it would be wise to have it activate based on lack of communication, either. There are all kinds of reasons communication with the satellite might be lost, and it would really suck if it blew up based on that alone. Never know when you might figure out the problem and regain contact.
The only solution I could think of would be a self-destruct that activates upon reentry. There must be environmental variables you could test for to detect a reentry event.
I'm betting that in a thousand years or so, long after the fall of civilization (if it occurs, which I wouldn't bet on personally), a scene like this may occur:
Preacher Man on Stage: I for one believe that god is *not* a machine god like you villagers all profess!
Villagers: Lies! Slander! We ourselves have a semi-innate sort of bond with these mysterious machines. How could these machines be built *for* man yet not *by* man if it wasn't built by God?
*Suddenly, a satellite lands on the preacher*
Villagers: Praise robot Jesus!
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
ie. retrieving satellites from orbit?
What is it with people thinking that when you blow something up, you get rid of it? Didn't they learn this already?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtVSzU20ZGk
And I'm not sure why people think that that the remaining bits will just decay into the atmoshpere -- surely some are destined to be boosted into higher orbit by the blast.
Give me a break - the US doesn't give a damn about human rights. Witness our (in)action in Sudan, Rwanda, etc.
Human rights are just a justification for doing what we want to do for other reasons. If Sudan or Rwanda had significant oil, you'd see a different level of attention paid - unless of course the goverment perpetrating these atrocities was friendly with us, in which case you'd never hear about it at all.
Letting the satellite re-enter atmosphere unbroken would be the only way to make sure it does NOT create a debris field.
A satellite is not an airplane, there's no way to "shoot" it down. Breaking it in pieces will not bring it down, it's atmospheric drag that's doing it. All the Pentagon is doing is trying to make sure that it breaks down into pieces small enough to protect their military secrets.
By blowing up the satellite with a missile they have no control on how it's going to break, all they can do is estimate on the most probable breaking patterns. They cannot be sure that the remaining pieces will be of such sizes and shapes to re-enter the atmosphere in a predictable manner and time.
There is still the possibility that some of the largest fragments will hit some populated area. The fuel tanks, which are compact and very strongly built, will have a rather good chance of surviving, and reaching the earth's surface still containing some of that extremely toxic hydrazine (so toxic that a drop can kill a person). Besides, the explosion will inevitably send some fragments into a higher orbit, and possibly damage other satellites.
Blowing up a decaying satellite with a missile is, IMHO, the stupidest thing to do, and I have been an engineer working with satellite control systems for nearly 24 years by now.
The Chinese ASAT test was criticized for bringing us closer to a Kessler Syndrome. If this proposed shootdown could somehow be designed to not move us in that direction, fine. But right now I don't see how that's possible.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
How funny would it be if they missed? ~:-)
It might be of interest to note that the article referred to shows a picture of the USS Shiloh, a ship known to carry SM-3 exo-atmospheric HTK missiles. One can guess that this might be the interception device of choice...
The virtues in this case are that unlike an explosive fragmentation warhead, the momentum of a kinetic weapon is (duh!) in the direction of motion. That is, the warhead itself isn't going to add to the problem. And no, a miss wouldn't send the interceptor itself into orbit. Not that a miss is likely... radar/LWIR on a relatively slow, non-dodging target, with pretty much NO clutter.
How, pray tell, does one shoot down a sattelite?
... is the shoot down part just a colloquialism for "blow into pieces", or are they actually trying to collide a missile with it head on, removing it's momentum and sending it hurling towards Earth?
Blow it up, sure, but shoot it down? It's not a bird. It doesn't flap it's wings to stay up there, it does so just by it's momentum. So, what I'm asking is,
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
"says the anonymous coward, too afraid to risk looking like ANYTHING."
Um, doesn't he look like an Anonymous Coward? And wouldn't that be SOMETHING?
Which of course, means you look like an imbecile. Again.
Didn't you learn anything, imbecile?
Dr. Evil: You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
Number Two: Sea Bass.
Dr. Evil: [pause] Right.
Number Two: They're mutated sea bass.
Dr. Evil: Are they ill tempered?
Number Two: Absolutely.
If it ever becomes worthwhile to regularly leave orbit, debris will be a short term impediment, not a centuries long problem. (the reasoning here is easy -- the easier it is to send stuff into/out of orbit, the easier it is to send stuff into orbit to knock the junk out of the way)
It is still stupid to wantonly pollute various orbits, but the primary effect of blowing this particular satellite up will be that it deorbits in pieces.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Isn't it already in free fall?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I don't think that it was rocket science (aha!) to determine that Bush's first course of action would be to shoot a missle at his problems.
These missiles don't even have explosives on board: the final stage of the rocket is basically an unmanned kamikaze kill vehicle that just slams into the target at high speed, hopefully enough to break it up.
Popular Mechanics explains:
Several successful anti-ballistic mile tests have been conducted from the cruisers, most frequently from the USS Shiloh, but no test has the urgency or high profile as the impending satellite shoot-down. The SM-3, when fired vertically, can target a satellite as high as 310 miles. After the third stage of the rocket is spent, the kill vehicle finds the target with forward-looking infrared sensors and steers itself into the satellite. "What we're talking about is a minor modification in software, from the Aegis system and the missile itself," Cartwright said.
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Yes, they would. People on the ground will always be at some danger when you put an 11-ton satellite in low earth orbit.
But it's easier to predict the impact point of a body that has a well known shape and orbit than that of a body that has been torn apart and pushed in random ways by an explosion.
Remember, everything you know about this is misinformation. Did the sat really fail? Has it been working the whole time? Was this the plan all along? Was this funky orbit needed as part of the mission? Does this "shoot down" cover something else? Perhaps a way to recover something on the sat? This is spook land folks and everything is twisted.
Just drop it over Australia; after all, only criminals live here eh?
We'll stick it in a museum with the bits of Skylab.
"and make stupid comments"
At least you finally got something right.
"so stupid as to think that..."Jafafa Hots," for example, is something of worth"
I agree with you on this actually, you are worthless.
So that leaves only one theory -- the US also want to demonstrate its ASAT capability after China has done so. But the US wants to appear less rude, so they send up a dummy, pronounce it dead and dangerous and then shoot it down.
It looks like one of the last acts of America's finest faith-based regime is going to be the creation of an asteroid belt around Earth. Lovely.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
As the founding member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Spy Satellites (SPCSS), I decry this inhumane move by the US government. This story follows an all too familiar pattern. An owner buys a new satellite just because it is trendy to do so but the first minute something goes wrong, he goes for the anti satellite missile. Just because the poor spy satellite is in distress does not mean we should just shoot it. This spy satellite only have the misfortune of being at the wrong place and at the wrong time through entirely not of its own fault. Clearly, a more humane solution must be found. Perhaps we can find another suitably loving country who can overlook past its imperfections and adopt this spy satellite if the US no longer wants it. Help prevent cruelty to spy satellites.
In Soviet Russia, Satellites shoot you. (Or is that Soviet America?)
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Maybe Scientology will ask if Xenu's Galactic Confederacy can shoot it down with their DC-9's.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Maybe the Toxic Rocket Fuel is a cover and it's powered by a nuclear powered Ion drive?
You would think the heat of re-entry would expand the rocket fuel gases and exploded the Satellite?
I'm sure they'll run a boatload of tests while shooting this thing down.
This reminds me of the classic video where a Whale washed ashore. The city decided to blow it up and huge chucks of whale fell on bystanders and cars. The bits and pieces of this satellite will definitely fall on us and create a debris field that will wreck other satellites.
Blowing up a decaying satellite with a missile is, IMHO, the stupidest thing to do, and I have been an engineer working with satellite control systems for nearly 24 years by now.
I'm glad someone in the field agrees with me on this.Still it might keep some bad stuff out of the hands of bad guys...And it might be pretty to watch over a wider area. It. reminds me of a farside cartoon with martians watching mushroom clouds over earth going "OOOOhh, ahhhhh!"
I'm not a rocket scientist but I don't think this is a bright idea. The fact that Bush's security advisers say it is a good idea is hardly a resounding vote of confidence.
Based on it's orbit, there will be no debris left in orbit after about a month or two.
Unlike the Chinese, who hit a satellite in a stable orbit and thus the debris will be up there for thousands of years. I mean that literally.
FYI, since Jan 2 the Chinese are responsible for 42% of all debris in space.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Maybe they're hoping if the satellite finds out we're planning on shooting it, it'll get scared and start replying to their commands to activate. This kinda worries me about the state of the art in artificial intelligence that they're installing on these orbital platforms... Hopefully the satellite doesn't take this action the wrong way and organizes an orbital strike on us with some of its pals...
/is/ bringing it down in a controlled manner. In which case shooting it down would be the appropriate response. Wouldn't be surprised if this is the mindset :P
Or even worse, maybe someone successfully hacked the satellite and
Anyway, enough quack theories from me...
I'm surprised this job hasn't been outsourced to India.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=&q=india+%2B+anti-satellite&btnG=Search+News
If they could do that, why do they want to shoot it in the first place? If they can track it well enough to recover the Hydrazine, then they can track it well enough to protect/recover the classified material. Are we down to waving our ballistics around to see who is biggest?
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
Surely then the backup master CPU would notice the first master CPU had died, and take over. They do build redundancy into these things, right?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Sooo... They launched this thing a year ago. It failed to work on deployment. Must have had a "Vista Capable" badge.
I am surprise this thing does not have a alternate self destruct mechanism they could use. This way it could be safely destroyed away from the space station.
They infer that there is a chance that us shooting this satellite could cause parts to stay in orbit...those only true in a limited sense.
The bulk of the craft will continue coming down as before, except in pieces. There may, however, be pieces ejected with enough force to enter an orbit that is on average higher than that of the satellite at the time of impact. However, the orbits of these pieces will be elliptical and their perigee will be at least as low as the initial orbit. Any component of velocity in the radial direction will result in a perigee lower than the initial orbit, and those parts may actually re-enter sooner due to their passes through the denser, lower atmosphere, even though their initial energy is higher.
I say we launch it into orbit, and nuke it from the surface. It's the only way to be sure.
What do you think this is, Soviet Russia?
why cant we just use an infrared laser and vaporise the thing?
The satellite isn't being "shot down", it's coming down anyway.
Shooting it won't make it come down any faster.
They are blowing it apart into smaller pieces before it comes down to Earth.
I hate the way "the media" always gets this stuff wrong.
What else do they get wrong? Huh???
The target of the chinese test was an old chinese weather satellite orbiting at 865km.
USA 193 is orbiting at an altitude of 260km. The lifetime of the debris will be very short.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
You can minimize the danger if you inflict a sudden loss of momentum on the satellite such that it will come down in an unpopulated area, such as an ocean, with a high degree of predictability. If you can at the same time destroy the satellite's tank, which contains a highly poisonous substance, all the better. If you just let it come down on its own, it can come down anywhere (equator +/- the orbit's inclination), with the tank likely to be still intact.
But it's easier to predict the impact point of a body that has a well known shape and orbit than that of a body that has been torn apart and pushed in random ways by an explosion.
They're dealing with an out-of-control, non-aerodynamic object in orbit. Predicting the impact point of such a thing with an accuracy of less than a few thousand miles is impossible until the last one or two orbits (i.e. one our two hours before it comes down). Predicting it with an accuracy that would allow for any reasonably attempt at warning, let alone evacuating, people on the ground is well-nigh impossible.
It seems that china, or any orbit capable country could bring an end to most space exploration and orbital systems. If the aggressor party put a counter rotating orbital debris field, it could wipe out the geo-synch comms and polar orbit weather/spy birds. Cutting cables with anchors is low tech, and repairable without space suits. --- America was at it's apex when trade with China was banned. Expect poison, filth and fail when you deal with the dark side. They want you to die. They Win.
There's only two reasons to shoot this thing down:
1. It's going to land directly on a very populous area (New York, Shanghai, Berlin, etc...)
2. The tech is so embarrassing that we'd rather look like idiots than loose all credibility.
Number 2 is the most interesting to me. I assume that they can read a piece of paper from space now... and I don't even think that would be embarrassing anyway. I mean we've all got satelite maps - it's a no brainer to assume they have better tech and have for a LONG TIME.
No, this thing is perhaps either game-changing (reading paper through ceilings) or shameful (laser weapon system, "personal space assassin", or a WMD-type device).
The thing is - this size satellite comes down every few years and nobody cares. No military people go spilling beans anonymously to the press - which isn't very reassuring anyway. We'll probably never know - unless it really is that dangerous.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Or will it be shot to end its pain?
Can't we just turn the satellite into a molten blob of metal with high powered lasers? Operated by sharks or otherwise?
I'd guess that any object with a magnesium outer shell and frame would burn quite nicely once it enters the athmosphere. So anything sensitive which would be better off burned than in 'enemy' hands could be encased in magnesium which has the benefit of being light, strong and flammable...
--frank[at]unternet.org
>China's debris will be in orbit for thousands of years (and I mean that literally). I rather doubt it. With the constantly increasing value of scrap metal, and the dawn of commercial space flight in sight, it's just a matter of time before someone start collecting space debris to recycle, Of course, that will shortly be followed by people collecting "scrap wire" from satalites for the copper, and "oops, that wire we just cut was actually live, I wonder if it didi anything important"
There is one thing I am confused about. Why doesn't the government just admit that it is shooting down the satellite to protect the technology on it? That seems like a pretty valid reason. Is there something I'm not getting?
in a jolly pissing match about the ability to shoot down satellites
The problem isn't the sat or pieces of it, it's the half ton of frozen hydrazine that could survive reentry and land in a lump. Nasty poison, that.
The solution is to to hit it with a Terrier-based SM-3 kinetic warhead (http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/stardsm3.htm). It hasn't hit a target yet, and those attempts were suborbital velocity and altitude ballistic missiles.
If the SM-3 warhead were replaced with the anti-sat equivalent of a shotgun shell, and it were launched to intercept from in front of the sat at say 1/2 orbital speed, it'd riddle the sat and hydrazine tank at 1.5 x orbital speed and the pellets would fall back in less than 1 orbit. The kinetic energy would help de-orbit the sat, but since it'd be full of holes, where ever that happened it'd come apart. It's a lot easier to hit a sat with at least some of a large number of smaller pellets than a single warhead.
Of course this is an old SDI idea (Smart Pebbles) which was never meant to be used, so it won't be.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
After the 2003 explosion nearly half of the space shuttle, including body parts, was recovered. It was hit and miss what suvived. This was a spacelab mission with several dozen mostly-automated science experiments. Some computer disks survived and even some biological material. Most results had been transmitted back to scientists already, so the mission was mostly a scientific success. I heard this from one of the P.I.s in a talk a few eyars ago.
Many sensitive payloads have self-destruct systems in them. But these can fail too if the satellite is never properly activated as seems to be the case here.
Provided we take it out "the right way", the anti-sat missile should hit it on the return trajectory and not on the way up. Thus the imparted momentum will knock the majority of debris out of orbit rather than making a mess of it. Hopefully that's what happens, and the U.S. shot will be cleaner than the Chinese one.
Right, because human rights in, say, Iran are far worse than in any country we reward (say, Uzbekestan, or China). If you really think this is about human rights instead of commercial rights, you haven't been paying attention. For that matter, which of these nations has the best human rights record: Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Turkey? Which has the worst? Which ones are we allied with?
For that matter, when was Saddam's human rights record worst? What was the US's reaction when Saddam gassed the Kurds? Hint-- we didn't institute sanctions. We didn't send in troops. We did nothing.
I don't think that the US qualifies as a world-wide dictator at the moment because we simply don't have the power to force governments to do things our way. At the moment, our army is stretched thin in active duty Afghanistan and Iraq, and in scores of other places (such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea) where we have allowed stability to become dependant on the presense of American forces. Hence we cannot pose any credible military threat to any non-nuclear power anywhere in the world today (air strikes don't count), thanks to W.
BTW, there is something of a world government in the United Nations, and yes, it does mean that countries agree to play the game by certain rules. And yes, there are consequences for ignoring these rules, even to the US.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I got the base wit of his post--that wasn't my point. It was his use of the word "converse".
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
Ah. That just means that you're not necessarliy smarter than them. :P
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Given the fact that shooting down a satellite will be a much greater challenge than shooting down an aircraft because of the broad range between the launch of the missile and the speed of the moving target-I am somewhat suprised that the missile isnt armed with a small nuclear warhead. The advantage of using a tiny nuclear warhead(no more than 5KT)would be that the satellite would pretty much be vaporized and there'd be no debree to worry about.
No, it means that I know what "converse" means and he doesn't. And that you must not, either.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
"No, it means that I know what "converse" means and he doesn't. And that you must not, either."
That's an interesting claim considering I understand what he's saying and you don't. Heh.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)