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.'"

Comments

Target practice or....?

[link5280]

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?

Re:Target practice or....?

[p0tat03]

A bit of both I suppose. It's not every day you get to do a live-fire exercise of your satellite-attacking technologies... Not to mention it's not every day you get a real live test of just how good your satellite's anti-missile technologies are! Either way somebody in the military wins :P

Big chunks will no doubt re-enter the atmosphere relatively quickly, and they should be small enough that they will burn up completely in upon re-entry, which I think was the whole point of this exercise...

Not the same as Chinese Test

[usul294]

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.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[scheme]

Satellites have been falling ever since we started putting them up, its no real threat.

The reson we are doing this is obvious - to demonstrate to the world (and the Chinese) that was have functional ASAT capability.

I think the reason is more because various agencies are worried that the satellite will end up falling in someplace while Russia or China and the intact pieces will give these countries examples to reverse engineer or clues as to US capabilities. I believe the satellite is supposed to be the newest generation of spy sats so it's probably full of interesting little tech.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[TripMaster Monkey]

From a related story (emphasis mine):

The orbit of Solar Max, a 5,000-pound satellite that collected information on solar flares for nine years, has deteriorated to the point that the spacecraft should crash back to earth late this week, the space agency said today.

Most of the craft will burn up in the atmosphere, but about a dozen pieces of three to five pounds each, plus one piece of about 100 pounds, are expected to come back down to earth. The debris could fall anywhere on earth from 28 degrees north to 28 degrees south of the Equator.

And from TFA (again, emphasis mine):

It is not known where the satellite will hit. But officials familiar with the situation say about half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft is expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and will scatter debris -- some of it potentially hazardous -- over several hundred miles.

It doesn't seem as if "shooting down" the satellite is really going to cause much more damage than re-entry and impact will...for this reason, my money's on either target practice for our benefit, or, more likely, a not-so-subtle demonstration of our space superiority.