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

Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[stevedcc]

"We consider our secrets to be worth space junk, but your security not to be".

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.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[crymeph0]

That may be the actual thought process at the Pentagon, but there is actually a sound justification for shooting down this satellite: TFA says there is a 1 percent chance debris could hit a populated area. That is well above the danger threshold NASA, etc. allow when choosing where to perform a controlled deorbit. 1 percent doesn't seem like a lot, until you realize how many satellites are up there, and they all must come down eventually.

Even if safety weren't a genuine concern, it would still be acceptable to shoot down this particular satellite, in my uninformed opinion. I believe this because it's already in a decaying orbit that will bring it down within two months. Any debris created by the explosion will be in a similar or slightly higher orbit, and will also decay to GLO (ground-level orbit) in a reasonably short time. The satellite the Chinese shot down was in a much higher orbit, and that debris is likely to stay up for *hundreds* of years, IIRC. If they had shot down a satellite in a similar orbit as this, there wouldn't be a stink about the debris, only about the naked attempt at weaponizing space.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[evanbd]

To be fair, the space junk isn't equivalent -- the junk from a satellite that's about to reenter will also reenter promptly, whereas the junk from a satellite in a high orbit will remain in a high orbit. The impact won't actually alter the orbital parameters of the junk as much as you might expect; nearly all of it will reenter promptly, and I'd be surprised if any of it managed to get high enough to present a danger to other satellites (the satellite in question is well below normal operating altitudes).

Of course, I'm not trying to say the US isn't guilty of hypocrisy -- just that this case isn't as bad as you make it out to be.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[errxn]

The only way issues like this will ever be resolved is by allowing some intra-national body to have either approval or veto powers

You mean, like a...wait for it...world government? The closest thing we have now is the UN, and look how well that is working out.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[Nefarious Wheel]

until you realize how many satellites are up there, and they all must come down eventually.

What goes up must come down, eh?

Nope.

It depends entirely on the radius of the orbit, the orbital velocity, and the amount of upper atmosphere remaining at that altitude. If the orbit is good and the drag nil, it'll stay up there. Or at least that's how orbital mechanics worked when I was a kid.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[crymeph0]

I didn't mean "must" in the "great hand of physics will pull the satellite to its inevitable doom" sense, but rather in the "we intentionally deorbit all our satellites after their useful life is over to avoid filling the skies with debris" sense. And even without intentionally deorbiting them, most satellites experience enough atmospheric drag (i.e. not 'nil') to bring them down in tens to hundreds of years - not a legacy you'd like to leave your grandchildren.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[fastest fascist]

You mean inter-national, right? This intra-national body with approval and veto powers sounds like something out of US foreign policy... Mainly, an intra-US body with global veto and approval powers.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[eln]

intra-national That word...I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[Anonymous Coward]

But you're still wrong. Most satellites are moved into a parking orbit when they reach the end of their useful life, or they're left where they are if they don't have sufficient capability to be moved into a safer orbit. Very few satellites are intentionally deorbitted.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[smooth wombat]

Yes, all we need is a world dictatorship to tell sovereign nations what they are permitted to do.

Such as telling certain countries they are not allowed to have nuclear weapons while allowing, and even encouraging, others to do so. Or telling certain countries they cannot have wmds in general and then invading that country to prove they don't have any. Or did you mean not trading with a country until it changes its political climate?

You mean a world dictatorship telling soverign nations what they are permitted to do like that, right?

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[amorsen]

I didn't mean "must" in the "great hand of physics will pull the satellite to its inevitable doom" sense, but rather in the "we intentionally deorbit all our satellites after their useful life is over to avoid filling the skies with debris" sense. And how exactly does that happen? Geostationary satellites get pushed slightly higher so they don't take up space in the geostationary orbit, but they never bring enough fuel to be able to get back to Earth.

And even without intentionally deorbiting them, most satellites experience enough atmospheric drag (i.e. not 'nil') to bring them down in tens to hundreds of years - not a legacy you'd like to leave your grandchildren. Again, wrong for geostationary (and lots of other orbits).

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[Arcane_Rhino]

Yep. Exactly like that. Now imagine the United States (since you have so caged the argument and completely ignored the roles that other nations have played) had LEGAL authority over you rather than just coercive authority. So now, if you don't comply with the will of the dictatorial US - on all of its issues, not just its fear-based ones - you go to prison or lose some of your country's GNP and sovereignty.

Don't think a world government will solve your problems, it will be like your current perception of the US on steroids. Or do you really think they will support YOUR agenda? If so, keep livin' the dream dude. I don't have any faith that another layer of government, one more level abstracted, will be of any benefit to me what-so-ever.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[LWATCDR]

Not really. The US satellite is in a very low orbit It is decaying so the pieces will decay as well.
The Chinese satellite was in a pretty high altitude and the junk will take a very long time. The only real issue that this will cause if the impact actually imparts enough energy in the correct direction to push some of the fragments into a much higher orbit. That is going to be very unlikely since the intercept will probably not be a tail chase.
Odds are they will target this just before it is do to renter to prevent that from happening.
The intercept should reduce the danger of any really big pieces actually making it to earth and hitting anything important.

So yea you are pretty much making an anti us rant with no real basis in facts.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[Goaway]

Only a couple percent of satellites are geostationary. Plus, nobody's shooting them down, so they are not really part of the topic discussed anyway.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[Phleg]

Nobody was "told" they aren't allowed to have nuclear weapons.

Please go Wikipedia the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, then post a public apology for not having a clue what you're fucking talking about.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[Duggeek]

The AC reply has a point... of the "research" I've done, it's clear that S.O.P. for most communications/observation/unknown satellites is not to bring them down, but push them up.

IOW, when the satellite is clearly headed for the heap, but still responsive, the final order received by the satellite is something like;

(1) POINT THRUSTER AT EARTH
(2) FIRE THRUSTER
(3) CONTINUE UNTIL FUEL IS DEPLETED
(4) BYE

Yes sir... they just fling 'em off into space. Who needs to spend millions on recovery teams and salvage operations when a few additional lines of code will solve the problem for everyone!

The MSNBC article says:

...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. At least with a missile strike, there's a chance that they can control exactly where the debris lands. Then again, entropy has foiled the plans of men throughout history.

Maybe they will give details on exactly when and where the missile strike can be seen... break out the folding chairs!

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[amorsen]

Only a couple percent of satellites are geostationary. [citation needed]. Also, the interesting question isn't how many are geostationary, but how many aren't LEO. Anyway, as of February 13, 5,995 have been launched and 2,761 of those have decayed.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[Magada]

Bzzt. Straw man. You are right in saying that the NPT is not coercive. International laws (such as they are) say that if the Nigerian gov't decides they want nukes, they can just bow out of the NPT and go their own way - in theory.

However, many states were, in fact, told to get their grubby paws off nuke tech by nuclear-armed countries - Israel in particular likes to deliver such messages in the form of air strike packages but other forms of coercion have also been used, such as the (continuing) embargo against NK.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[malsdavis]

the junk from a satellite that's about to reenter will also reenter promptly, whereas the junk from a satellite in a high orbit will remain in a high orbit

Except that a high-speed rocket, launched from earth, will inevitably propel debris into much higher orbits. As with the Chinese test, some pieces of debris may even completely escape earth's gravity field.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[Goaway]

About 90 satellites remain active in geostationary orbit, was one number I saw quoted when googling this earlier. (Out of 120 launched? I may be misremembering that.)

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[evanbd]

Except for two important points: first, what little data I've seen suggests such collisions won't change the orbit of either object or its remains much at all. If you have references, I'd love to see them -- they're hard to find. And secondly, without a circularization burn, any piece of debris will end up on an orbit that intersects the collision point. And since the collision point is very low, that means the orbit will decay rapidly, even if it is highly elliptical with a high-altitude apogee. So even in the worst case, it won't pose a hazard to other satellites for very long. The real problem with the Chinese test is that the debris isn't going away.

Re:Our secrets are worth more than your secrets!

[einhverfr]

Ok, it is probably safe to say that most of the junk from the destruction will deorbit quickly as most of it will end up in eccentric orbits picking up atmospheric drag quickly), or even deorbit ahead of the time the satellite would.

However, it seems to me that there is a strong probability that at least a small amount of debris would end up in a stable orbit above where the satellite was. So it seems to me that this is not as safe as we might think from an anti-space-junk perspective.

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...

Re:Target practice or....?

[Sen.NullProcPntr]

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... What about the force of the explosion? With no air resistance isn't just as likely that some pieces (of both the satellite and the missile) will end up in higher orbit thus the concern for collision with other satellites.

Re:Target practice or....?

[gnick]

Or target practice? Don't underestimate the value of target practice. Shooting down a satellite is no simple matter. The Chinese engineers decided that they couldn't just hit one with a missile, so they sent up a missile capable of firing a separate payload once it got close enough. I'm sure the US would love an excuse to try out a satellite killer. And, since it's been made clear what a hazard this thing could be if it falls to earth, they can try out their new toy AND protect the planet from their defunct satellite.

Re:Target practice or....?

[peragrin]

That is my thought but if they wait until just it just about enters the atmosphere, or slightly after, the upwards debris is minimized while making sure that most of the debris burns up on reentry.

Of course this being the USA Military I expect military intelligence to kick in and they send up 5 missiles more than they need to.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Trails]

That's probably unlikely. Keep in mind that a higher orbit requires more than just altitude, it also requires angular velocity. The explosion would have to impart enough kinetic energy to not just overcome the gravitational potential to reach the altitude of other sats, but also to impart the necessary angular velocity about the earth.

The US military is probably aware of the max velocity of debris from their different ordinance. As much as the US administration is full of morons, the physicists designing the ordinance and planning stuff like this are quite competent.

Re:Target practice or....?

[dotancohen]

Or target practice? Target practice is exactly what I was thinking too. To show that they _can_ do it. Actually, I'd like to see the Chinese shoot it down first. Would that sour Sinoamerican relations? I think that the credibility it would lend to China would outweigh Bush's anger, and in any case, the satellite is scheduled for decommission anyway.

Re:Target practice or....?

[cheater512]

In order to orbit successfully the debris would need a specific velocity and trajectory.
Chances are it would fall back to earth fairly quickly.

Re:Target practice or....?

[marklark]

Umm... If there weren't some sort of resistance, the orbital decay wouldn't have started in the first place.

The area above Earth is only a relatively good vacuum - and there are magnetic fields that get in the way of things, too.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Zymergy]

They are sending a clear message to China.
In an way, it is an opportunity for a US response to this: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/18/0235229

The thing is, you do not want "pollute" your (everyone's actually) orbital pathways around earth with millions of pieces of high-velocity debris like the Chinese irresponsibly did here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/19/china_satellite/
The Chinese dramatically increased debris in several orbital pathways from the state-sanctioned shoot-down of their former satellite. This is basically putting a mine field in that part of space. Rocket Scientists do not do things like this *without* first considering the consequences. (As in creating "nearly 800 debris fragments of size 10 cm or larger, nearly 40,000 debris fragments with size between 1 and 10 cm, and roughly 2 million fragments of size 1 mm or larger" at hyper-velocities http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1360/chinese-asat-test-massive-debris-creation-likely ) The Chinese knew what they were doing with the shoot-down and is highly likely it was on purpose.
It is likely the US do not want to create orbital debris, but are willing to chance it at the last possible moment to prevent the bird from falling in unfriendly turf. The Media's Hydrazine fuel scare is mostly hype. True, hydrazine is hazardous, but it readily dissipates and soon breaks down into Ammonia and Nitrogen (both of which are naturally occurring in our the environment).

Re:Target practice or....?

[link5280]

Without a doubt some debris will accelerate into a higher orbit, but this will not affect all aspects of the debris path. The other side of the orbit, most likely the new perigee, will remain mostly unchanged. Atmospheric drag will still be a major factor in this part of the orbit. I'm sure the military is modeling the potential affects prior to creating 100s of potentially new space objects. Then again some military scientists speculated the A-Bomb might destroy the entire world yet they detonated it anyway.

Re:Target practice or....?

[ehrichweiss]

I think it's going to be less about air resistance and more about gravity's effect in this instance. And the longer they wait, the more the orbit will decay and the less chance there is of anything causing this. Regardless, any debris that does move to a higher altitude isn't going to actually achieve orbit because it'll require more than just some upward force to do so.

Re:Target practice or....?

[arivanov]

My thought as well. If the Russians or Chinese whack it first they will make the US a total laughing stock. The narrower the window between the US launch and the RU or CN hit the better. Gawd, I can just imagine the sour faces in the Pentagon. It will really be "what a laugh" case.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Darkfire79]

Lets just hope it doesnt miss.. It would look bad.

Re:Target practice or....?

[shewfig]

It could be entertaining to "accidentally" tell the Chinese where it is, and LET THEM blow it up first. Then the Bush administration could pretend to be outraged... lots of fun the whole planet can enjoy.

Re:Target practice or....?

[imipak]

I say we launch it into orbit, and nuke it from the surface. It's the only way to be sure.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Anonymous Coward]

Short answer: No

Longer answer: The orbit of a satellite can be determined by the position and the velocity at any time. Orbits are changed by changing the velocity of a satellite, but the old and new orbits will continue to intersect at the point where the velocity was changed.

Changing to a higher orbit will require two changes in velocity and uses a transfer orbit that intersects both orbits. One velocity change puts the satellite into the transfer orbit and one velocity change puts it into the final orbit. Usually, the two velocity changes are at opposite sides of the transfer orbit (half an orbit period apart).

I assume that this will use a warhead instead of a rocket motor for a single change of velocity, but there will only be one change of velocity. If the intercept takes place at lowest point of the current orbit then any debris will be in an orbit that will return the debris to the point of intercept. If it is already brushing the atmosphere then reentry is inevitable and the time to reentry will only depend on the ratio of the mass to air drag of the object (small heavy objects will stay in orbit longer).

Normal precautions of staying out of the temporary orbits of the debris does apply.

_Richard

Re:Target practice or....?

[pete-classic]

Keep in mind that a higher orbit requires more than just altitude, it also requires angular velocity.

That makes no sense. The LEO period is about two hours. The moon's orbital period is almost 28 days.

-Peter

Re:Target practice or....?

[Tacubaruba]

I beleive it is obviously target practice. Since blowing up a satellite creates debris that can harm your other space assets, and yet a need exists to practice taking out enemy satellites, I would not be surprised if this top secret satellite was intended to fall to earth all along to provide the kind of target they needed. Blowing up a falling satellite avoids the problem of scattering debris. It will all fall to earth.

Re:Target practice or....?

[catwh0re]

I'd laugh if the chinese shot it down first in one of their ever-more-regular displays of belligerence.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Digi-John]

Would you like to play a game?
> GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR

Re:Target practice or....?

[elrous0]

And get to ensure that your secret spy satellite, with all it's juicy technology doesn't land in the "wrong hands" (i.e. any non-American or Democrat).

Re:Target practice or....?

[Shakrai]

sell Raptors to the Japanese and encourage them to get on with their nuclear program.

Yeah, there are ways to deal with China.

That's a great idea! Let's encourage a reemergence of Japanese militarism! What could possibly go wrong.

Re:Target practice or....?

[TinyManCan]

pi*r^2

Re:Target practice or....?

[Guysmiley777]

Also, the SM-3 missile's "warhead" is actually a maneuverable "kill vehicle" with no actual explosives. The damage is caused by good ol' kinetic energy.

Re:Target practice or....?

[AK Marc]

That's nice that you know the volume of a circle, but that isn't related at all to the angular velocity. The angular velocity is the angle carved out in a period of time. The poster that used angular velocity was flat out wrong. The real reason it is safe is that in a low circular orbit, if you push on it, you will make it more eccentric. The low point will be well within the range to have the atmosphere slow it down. There is no risk that there will be a cloud of debris floating for any long term. There is a near-zero chance that the first orbit or two debris will hit something. The problem with debris is when it is in stable orbits near other satellites. There is a very low chance of a collision, but when you have lots of debris and lots of passes, the low chance climbs to the point of a real threat. That can't happen in the case described.

Oh, and pi*d

Re:Target practice or....?

[Mister Whirly]

Game over man.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Jeremi]

That's nice that you know the volume of a circle

Just to be a smartass, I have to point out that the volume of a circle is zero, not pi*r^2.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Hawkeye05]

They mostly reenter orbit at night, mostly.

Re:Target practice or....?

[kabloie]

That satellite's anti-missile technology is as dead and unresponsive as the rest of that bird. This is simple target practice. Blow the hydrazine tank, try to break the mirror and open up all the aluminum to expose PCBs. Should be fun to watch, and people will be watching and waiting with telescopes to see the results. Cool!

Re:Target practice or....?

[blair1q]

Hit it from the front.

Firstly, this maximizes the relative momentum, and the force of the impact. More bang for the buck spent on the launch.

Secondly, it produces the least mean resultant momentum from both objects in the collision.

Third, anything thrown up will come down at a steeper angle.

It is possible for portions of the debris to end up with greater orbital momentum than they had before the collision, but it would be a smaller portion. And it would be in a more elliptical orbit, which would increase its incursion into the atmosphere.

Basically, the chances any of this stays up even as long as the whole satellite was supposed to stay up are very low.

But, we're decreasing the momentum of many of the pieces to the point they will probably not burn up on reentry. We may be reducing the footprint for the bulk of the debris, but there will be an expanding ball of debris that will have a larger footprint. I hope someone's figured that out.

Oh, and because there's no air up there, all the shock has to come from the collision or explosion. That changes what "explosion" means in a big way. Don't expect this thing to be blown to tiny bits. Broken into small chunks is more like it.

Small chunks that will be more likely to survive re-entry, and may have a wider and longer debris field.

What the fuck are they thinking?

Re:Target practice or....?

[complete loony]

If they can hit it head on, the explosion may even slow the pieces down so they enter the atmosphere sooner.

Re:Target practice or....?

[drerwk]

The force of the explosion can not put any part of the debris into a higher circular orbit. The debris may go into an elliptical orbit that has a much higher apogee, but perigee will be at the same altitude that the collision takes place. To get into higher circular orbit would require a corrective impulse at apogee. This is true for all of the debris that continues to orbit. Therefore, that debris will on each orbit pass through relatively thick atmosphere, and suffer the eventual consequence of de-orbit. In fact, since the surface area of the debris is likely to be much larger than that of the satellite, it should be a rapid de-orbit.

Re:Target practice or....?

[DrWho520]

I prefer Popular Mechanics take on the situation over CNN. Note toward the end of the article, "The U.S. Navy strike should only leave debris that will burn up harmlessly during reentry." They also state the point is to break up the Hydrazine canisters before impact...and play with their weapons system. Live fire exercise it is!

Re:Target practice or....?

[RobRyland]

What about the force of the explosion? With no air resistance isn't just as likely that some pieces (of both the satellite and the missile) will end up in higher orbit thus the concern for collision with other satellites.

No. The satellite is low, really in the upper atmosphere. No matter what delta-V you add to the debris, the orbit for the debris will go through the same point. You have to change the velocity TWICE to put the debris into a higher orbit! with a single impulse, essentially all the debris will go lower (and into the atmosphere) at some point on it's orbit. Debris really wont be a problem. -Rob

Re:Target practice or....?

[LWATCDR]

Since the impact will probably be close to head on probably not.
Will some end up in a higher orbit? Yes They me take a few more days or weeks to re-enter. Will any end up in a orbit high enough to make a difference? I really doubt it.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Alastor187]

What happens if they try to shoot it down and miss? Especially after the successful Chinese demonstration. Would that drive other nations to push their military development programs even harder?

Re:Target practice or....?

[phineas451]

Yeah, that's the only reason. hmmm... Spy satellite plus launch vehicle: $475 million dollars Aegis missile cruiser: $675 million dollars Using a SM-Mod3 missile instead of a M-80 to blow up one of your broken toys... Priceless... Sorry, someone had to say it...

Re:Target practice or....?

[hamster_nz]

The explosion will change the shape of the orbit, but the orbit of any debris will still pass through the altitude where the explosion occurs. There is no way to achieve 'round out' a orbit without thrust (something that the debris will not have..)

Orbital velocity is around 7km/s, so it is going to take a big bang to radically alter the orbit. I wonder how much momentum an explosion in a vacuum can impart... it would have to be pretty close. If it just crashes into the target then the average velocity of the debris will then be lower than what the target was traveling at (since the missile will be sub-orbital).

Whatever happens the smaller bits should experience higher drag-to-weight ratio and deorbit quicker - there is still drag in the very low earth orbits. So if this bird is in a useless high drag, low earth orbit, smashing it will not be too bad.

But smashing things in high orbit is not very nice though!

Re:Target practice or....?

[mi]

Let's encourage a reemergence of Japanese militarism! What could possibly go wrong.

The truly nasty Imperial Japan was still better, than the USSR and the post-War Communist China.

Since then Japan has improved dramatically, while Russia and China almost not at all. Yes, I'd take Japanese militarism over Russian or Chinese any day...

Re:Target practice or....?

[zoltamatron]

Very informative....so I guess then in the case of destroying a satellite with an explosive, then most of the debris will enter an elliptical orbit that at some point goes lower than the original orbit, thus increasing the chance of reentry for the particles? I would say that the only debris that won't go into an orbit that takes it lower, is debris that is accelerated in exactly the same direction as the original orbit. So, destroying this satellite while it is in a very low orbit would give a very good chance of all particles reentering.....

Re:Target practice or....?

[uvajed_ekil]

If the intercept takes place at lowest point of the current orbit then any debris will be in an orbit that will return the debris to the point of intercept.

The intercept will most likely come at a point when the satellite is passing over international waters, or perhaps over the US. No one in his right mind would want a shoot like this to be perceived as violating another nation's airspace, even if the would-be explosion is to take place in space. Ask North Korea how many friends they made when they shot a missile over Japan. I'm not familiar with this satellite's orbit, but I know I wouldn't want to shoot at something over someone else's land.

The characteristics of its orbit will surely be taken into account (I hope), but so will politics, as this is already a risky proposition, even if it is not the same as China blowing up a satellite in a higher orbit. Surely a lot of people around the world will be paying close attention to this, so care must be taken in the PR department as well as by the brains determining exactly when and how to do this.

Re:Target practice or....?

[drew]

Big chunks will no doubt re-enter the atmosphere relatively quickly, and they should be small enough that ...

How strange. I suddenly have this mental image of a number of state highway workers trying to decide how to dispose of a beached whale.

Re:Target practice or....?

[dotancohen]

If your definition of "improved" means "adopted American culture and politics", then yes, Japan has improved. Some people would use a different word, however.

That said, I dig your sig. Stumbled.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Shakrai]

The truly nasty Imperial Japan was still better, than the USSR and the post-War Communist China.

Try telling that to one of the Allied POWs held and tortured by the Japanese. Try telling that to one of the millions of Chinese that were raped and killed by the Japanese. Try telling that to a Filipino, Singaporean, Korean or Vietnamese who watched as his country was occupied and his people enslaved.

Yes, I'd take Japanese militarism over Russian or Chinese any day...

Interesting opinion to hold, seeing as how we've never been at war with China or Russia. Neither one of them ever conducted a sneak attack on American forces whilst engaged in diplomatic negotiations. China was an important ally against Japan during WW2 and it was Russian involvement in the end of the war (not the nuclear bombings as commonly believed) that brought it to a quick conclusion without requiring an invasion of the home islands.

I think we need a counter-weight to China too, but the GP was advocating for a nuclear armed Japan. That is a really bad idea. Give Japan nuclear weapons and it will start a regional arms race between Japan, China, Korea and Russia. It would destabilize the Taiwan situation and force the United States to pick sides. Our other allies in the Pacific (Australia and New Zealand) would be completely opposed to it and it would probably place the ANZUS treaty in jeopardy. It's an all around bad idea with no saving graces.

Personally, I'm more hopeful that a more assertive Russia will balance out China somewhat. Russia has the population and the resources to back it up and an assertive Russia is not going to destabilize the entire Pacific region.

Re:Target practice or....?

[plover]

we're decreasing the momentum of many of the pieces to the point they will probably not burn up on reentry

The satellite is moving probably about 7 km/s right now. Fast high explosives have a velocity of detonation of 8.4 km/s. Assuming a spherical explosion, there would be a small cone's worth of material at the back of the sphere traveling at a relatively low velocity with respect to the earth.

But I wouldn't assume the military would use a spherical explosive, and I wouldn't assume they'd put the explosive into the middle of the satellite and then detonate it like some cartoon explosion. I'd guess they'd instead throw up a small cloud dense with heavy shrapnel aimed directly toward the satellite, and let the kinetic energy of the collisions do the work of shredding the satellite and reducing its velocity.

Small chunks that will be more likely to survive re-entry

Small chunks are still less likely to survive reentry than large chunks. The key is mass. Think of a burning log on a fire. Ten minutes after you light it, it's still a heavy chunk of wood that would hurt you if you got hit with it.

Now, think of chopping that log into a hundred splinters. Sure, the combined mass is still heavy. But each of those hundred splinters take much less energy to light on fire, and once lit will be consumed quickly. 10 minutes will reduce them all to ash.

Sure, some of the fragments are more likely to survive reentry, but that's why you detonate the satellite at a controlled point, to ensure they all deorbit over the ocean.

I'm sure the real goals here are not to keep the world safe from hydrazine. The chances of the tank surviving reentry intact are probably very small. The real goals are to utterly destroy the surveillance equipment to the maximum degree possible, and ensure the camera fragments that do survive reentry are lost at sea. I'd think they want to hide the diameter of the main optics, and the resolution of the sensors. That information would tell the world what the real capabilities of the satellite are. Another goal would be a live fire test of their latest antisatellite weaponry. That's always a valuable exercise. Finally, they're is probably perceived value in the sabre rattling with the Chinese.

Re:Target practice or....?

[teknopurge]

You are certainly an ass, but aren't so smart. In mathematics instead of using the words length for 1 dimension, area for 2, volume for 3, and having nothing for higher dimensions, the word volume is used in a generic manner for arbitrary dimensions. When you get to high school you'll realize that you're wrong. Also, bookmark wolfram for future use.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Volume.html

Regards,

Re:Target practice or....?

[TheQuantumShift]

Target Practice. You don't often get the chance to practice blowing up something like this without creating an extra billion dollar clay pigeon. And of course there's the whole national security angle. Major League Baseball would be devastated if the Chinese were allowed to view the surveillance footage contained within that satellite. Seriously though, this training should prove invaluable once the terrorists start launching their own satellites...

Re:Target practice or....?

[mi]

Try telling that to one of the Allied POWs held and tortured by the Japanese.

The "try telling that" is a demagogic trick unworthy of a decent discussion. But if POWs held by Japanese were to exchange memories with the Germans held by the Russians, it is not at all clear, whose memories would've been worse...

Interesting opinion to hold, seeing as how we've never been at war with China or Russia.

We have — and not only the Cold War. During the Korean war, for example, we killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers — China is the reason, North Korea exists today (no crime ever committed by Japanese would match this ongoing atrocity). Air support was provided by USSR, BTW — in both Korean and Vietnam war...

China was an important ally against Japan during WW2 and it was Russian involvement in the end of the war (not the nuclear bombings as commonly believed) that brought it to a quick conclusion without requiring an invasion of the home islands.

Whether or not Chinese and Soviets have helped us defeat Japan is irrelevant to whether their regimes are/were better or worse than Japan's. I can only repeat, that Japan's current liberal democracy is far better, than China's and Russian regimes.

GP was advocating for a nuclear armed Japan. That is a really bad idea. Give Japan nuclear weapons and it will start a regional arms race between Japan, China, Korea and Russia.

China and Russia are nuclear-armed already (Russia — to the teeth) already. We already have "picked sides" too — Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea are defended by many thousands of US troops permanently staged in the region.

Re:Target practice or....?

[mi]

If your definition of "improved" means "adopted American culture and politics"

No, they have not, and no, that's not part of my definition. Now take your pathetic anti-American agenda some place else... You have neither the wit nor the grace to do it subtly, so don't even try.

Re:Target practice or....?

[Shakrai]

We have -- and not only the Cold War. During the Korean war, for example, we killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers -- China is the reason, North Korea exists today (no crime ever committed by Japanese would match this ongoing atrocity). Air support was provided by USSR, BTW -- in both Korean and Vietnam war...

Yeah, I realized about 10 seconds after I posted that that China intervened in Korea. I don't think you can throw many stones because of the USSR involvement though -- I doubt many Russians are happy about us arming the Afganis, nor are we very happy about the SA-2s that shot down our planes over Vietnam with the assistance of Soviet "technical advisors". Such actions were common on both sides during the Cold War -- though China's sending millions of troops into Korea definitely crossed the line.

that Japan's current liberal democracy is far better, than China's and Russian regimes.

Far better from whose standpoint? I don't happen to think that it's any of our business how other nations choose to govern themselves.

In any case though, you are missing the emotional side of the argument. A nuclear armed Japan would provoke outrage in China -- the Japanese killed millions of Chinese civilians during their war. It would ignite a regional arms race and encourage other nations to seek nuclear weapons just to keep up. You'd be flushing 50 years of US foreign policy down the toilet, and for what benefit?

Do you really think a nuclear armed Japan would be a good thing for international security? You realize they signed the NPT, right? If they can abandon it to get nuclear weapons then why not Iran?

China and Russia are nuclear-armed already (Russia -- to the teeth) already.

And your point is....? If anything, pointing out Russia's formidable nuclear arsenal only strengthens my argument that they would be a more useful counter-weight to China then Japan will.

We already have "picked sides" too -- Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea are defended by many thousands of US troops permanently staged in the region.

We haven't really been forced to pick a side with Taiwan. We have a defense agreement with them yet we don't recognize them as an actual state. If that conflict was brought out into the open (let's say encouraged by an avoidable regional arms race) then we'd have to choose between going to war with a major trading partner or allowing a Democratic state to be conquered/destroyed. A lose/lose situation no matter how you slice it.

Re:Target practice or....?

[mfrank]

The moon is about 50 times further away from the center of the earth than a satellite in LEO. The effect of earth's gravity is 2500 times less.

The interceptor will be like Rutan's spaceship. It'll be in space, but it's nowhere near being in orbit.

Re:Target practice or....?

[dotancohen]

There is absolutely nothing anti-American in my comment. Don't try so hard to be offended.

Re:Target practice or....?

[ceroklis]

That's funny because I happen to hold an MSc in math. I meant that in advanced mathematics (not high school) it is customary to use the word volume in a generic sense so that you don't depend on dimension. For example you can speak of the volume of the n-sphere. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-sphere#Volume_of_the_n-ball (and the example section below), where the volume of a circle is considered.

Re:Target practice or....?

[ceroklis]

BTW I and the OP should have said "disk" instead of "circle", but it is not uncommon to say the later when you mean the former. Mathematicians are generally clever enough to understand the context and not quibble over silly details.

Re:Target practice or....?

[PlusFiveTroll]

Mathematicians are generally clever enough to understand the context and not quibble over silly details.

30 seconds before Mars landing

Scientist 1: You meant 5000 meters instead of 5000 feet
Scientist 2: OH FUCK!

Re:Target practice or....?

[mi]

Far better from whose standpoint? I don't happen to think that it's any of our business how other nations choose to govern themselves.

From our standpoint — the same standpoint, from which brutality towards our POWs was bad, etc. It is perfectly legitimate for a nation to act differently towards other nations depending on how those nations govern themselves. The idea of nuclear-armed Japan was objected to in this thread based on Japan's history, which is deemed bad by us. Well, if they are deemed — by us — to have improved their governance dramatically since then, then we can accept their rise to power.

If anything, pointing out Russia's formidable nuclear arsenal only strengthens my argument that they would be a more useful counter-weight to China then Japan will.

We can spend many days discussing various what-ifs — my point is, Japan's (and Germany's, for that matter) past history should not be held against them, because they — unlike Russia and China, for example — have undergone dramatic changes in the government structure — for the better.

Ulterior motive?

[TripMaster Monkey]

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)...

Re:Ulterior motive?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

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

That, or there's some technology on the satellite that they don't want to risk falling (literally) into the hands of another country.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[stevedcc]

It's a spy satellite and it's so big that some of it's gonna crash. What if that's over Iran/N Korea/China? You think the US wants them picking apart the remains of classified technology? They have a reason, it's just not necessarily any better than China's logic in testing their ability to destroy satellites (protect themselves from other people's spy satellites). Unless you think that the US's reason is better because it's the US, and China's worse, because it's China.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[jellomizer]

I would say it is a kill two birds with one stone.
A. If push comes to shove they want to be able to shoot down emeny satellites.
B. They don't want the technology/information going to an other countries hands.
C. To show that we can, prevent other people from knocking out our own satellites.

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.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[gnick]

C. To show that we can, prevent other people from knocking out our own satellites. How does it do that? We would demonstrate our ability to respond in kind, but not actually interfere.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

And, we can (sorta) choose where the pieces come down, instead of relying on mere chance. My guess is they'll bring it down over the ocean.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[The Angry Mick]

That, or there's some technology on the satellite that they don't want to risk falling (literally) into the hands of another country.

Who cares? Wasn't the damn thing broken to begin with?

Re:Ulterior motive?

[LurkerXXX]

Shouldn't they have thought about that before they sent it up? They knew the orbit might eventually deteriorate before the 'enemy' came up with the same technology. What if it hadn't achieved as high of an orbit as originially desired? It would have decayed even sooner. What if something had gone wrong during launch and the payload ended up landing in China? Shouldn't they have had a few pounds of C4 on the payload along with a trigger mechanism?

The 'tech on the satellite they don't want falling into others hands' theory doesn't fly at all unless the guys running things are totally incompetent.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[icebrain]

Just because it broke doesn't mean you can't learn useful information from it. Most likely, the failure was something small (broken wire, software bug, dead battery, something of that nature), so assuming the hardware survives reentry and lands somewhere accessible, there's a very good chance analysts would get lots of information.

Remember when the F-117 was shot down in the Balkans? Even though the airplane was broken, I can guarantee you that the Russians and Chinese were very interested in examining the debris. You can learn a lot from a busted piece of machinery.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[Uncle Rummy]

If TFA is correct, this has to be a different ASAT weapon. The ASM-135 was designed to be launched from a fighter plane in a near-vertical ascent at high altitude. CNN seems to think the current proposal would involve a surface-launched missile. Sounds to me as though somebody's looking for an excuse to demonstrate that shutting down the ASM-135 program wasn't the end of our ASAT efforts.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is not technology, but basically classified information. See, we don't want our "allies" to know that we are spying on them too. Like the pictures that our satellites take when the Brits move their nuclear warheads from the "secret" (not for us...) silos into the Tornado bombers... Our the tracking we do for each and every step of the Saudi Princes so we can just kill them whenever we want to do so... I don't think those pictures on that satellite would make us look like the good guys we want them to think we are...

Re:Ulterior motive?

[RexRhino]

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)... The U.S. has had the ability to "shoot down" satelites since the 1960s. Any country capable of building a rocket and sending it into orbit is capable of "shooting down" satelites. Given the enourmous speeds these things are orbiting at, you don't need explosives or anything - with the right orbit, the kinetic energy should be enough to destroy any satelite.

So the U.S. doesn't need to demonstrate anything. Everyone always assumed that it can "shoot down" satellites. If anything the military are probably upset that they are going to have the world watching exactly how they "shoot down" satellites.

The reason for shooting down this satelite is:

1. Make sure it doesn't land on anything. Could you imagine the political repercussions if it came crashing down on a highly populated area and killed someone?

2. To make sure any top secret technology can't be recovered by other countries.

Both these reasons are totally understandable.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[AJWM]

You can learn a lot from a busted piece of machinery.

Heh, or not. One of the things Britain did during WW II was to leave bits of busted machinery (electronics) that not only never worked, but were designed to be deliberately misleading, at the occasional aircraft crash site in German-occupied territory. The idea was to keep German radar scientists, etc, busy chasing down wrong paths if/when they recovered the equipment. (Which they did; recovering any kind of radar-related gear from Allied aircraft was a high priority for them.)

Re:Ulterior motive?

[Osurak]

Or they just don't want it to fall on someone's head.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[typo83]

As was made clear during a televised pentagon briefing, and completely ignored by the news media is the reason why the Navy will attempt to impact this satellite just prior to its re-entry. The Navy is not attempting to 'shoot down' the satellite because the satellite will re-enter the earth's atmosphere with or without intervention.

The hazard this satellite presents is a full tank of hydrazine that will survive re-entry and pose a chemical hazard should it land in a populated area.

The purpose of the Navy shoot, is to breach that tank, and cause the hydrazine to dissipate during re-entry.

Also made clear during this briefing, nothing of value to counter-intelligence analysis will survive re-entry.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[Jeremi]

How does it do that? We would demonstrate our ability to respond in kind, but not actually interfere.

I believe it's the old Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine... this time applied to satellites instead of the civilian population.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[robfoo]

I would say it is a kill two birds with one stone.
A..
B..
C..

uh, I think that's three birds.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[alexhs]

The 2nd step is "???", so you're not sure it's a bird, it could very well be a dragon.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[houghi]

C. To show that we can, prevent other people from knocking out our own satellites.

Why would this prevent others from knocking down your satelites?

Re:Ulterior motive?

[jellomizer]

Simple... If I can knock down my Satelites then I can just as easilly knock down yours or your allies. So that fact will make a person think twice before knocking out a satelite. Like when a police man apprehends a criminal with a gun, most of the time the criminal will drop the gun and surrender vs. getting in to a gun fight with the police. Of course my anaology has the flaw that sometimes they criminal will get in a gun fight, but at great cost. But the same with the Satelites and countries even the most ratical and crazy tend to be rational enough to realize if I cripple the US then US Will cripple me.

Re:Ulterior motive?

[Shadowlore]

We've already done this. We did it a long time ago. So we've already proven we CAN do it, and we already KNOW we can.

So those two motives are off the table.

I'm sure the safety concerns are valid. Particularly if it came down somewhere with tense conditions and was confused with an attack.

However, don't think for a moment that this isn't also about REMINDING everyone we can. See this in the context of the recent political maneuvering of China and Russia regarding space.

Oh bullshit.

[Jafafa Hots]

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.

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:Oh bullshit.

[Lumpy]

Bullshit on your bullshit.

It's a brand new spy satellite that failed on deployment. It's chock full of the highest tech we could stuff in it.

I'd blow it up too if it was mine, there's a crapload of technology that even after reentry would be of HUGE value to many many people on this planet.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[Jafafa Hots]

Well, that's all well and good, but YOU read the fucking ARTICLE.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[malakai]

This is my thoughts as well. What scares/embarsses me is that we seem to have not thought of this ahead of time and so there is no built-in self destruct capability.

Or, we have a self-destuct system and one of it's requirements is communication with ground.

In that case I guess I'd have liked to of seen some built in structural weakness. Some sort of failsafe so that if the satellite were to re-enter the atmosphere and begin to burn up, some ignitable material would ensure a thorough burn/destruction of the entire satellite. Kinda like explosive bolts only not limited to the bolt mold.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[AvitarX]

Self destruct systems have mass and volume. That is a very tight resource on something sent into space.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[kaiser423]

Not to mention the hydrazine fuel that would kill the first chunk of people to find it. Talk about a big PR nightmare -- everyone close to wherever the hydrazine falls dies.

It's in a degenerate enough orbit to not cause any lasting space debris. We've done this before successfully, and we're going to see if we still can.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[morgan_greywolf]

Maybe. But you have to admit:

1) It's a chance to display ASAT tech.
2) It'll look very impressive.
3) There's almost no way this thing doesn't have some kind of auto-destruct mechanism. We're talking about a military satellite full of top-secret tech.
4) Using the auto-destruct, if present would be a lot cheaper.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[waterwingz]

Judging by the recent spy scandals at Boeing, I wonder if there is any need to worry about it landing in China. It sounds like they may have the original plans and will not need to be picking through shards of burnt metal looking for secrets.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[dwye]

> to demonstrate to the world (and the Chinese) that was have functional ASAT capability.

Just like the Chinese, who have already demonstrated their ASAT capability by pulling the same stunt on one of their satellites.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[starglider29a]

Too bad we can't encase it in a big kevlar bubble first. That newfangled lens or chip you just "destroyed" is just another bullet at 7KPS when it hits an old school orbiter. Space junk begets space junk.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[eclectro]

there's a crapload of technology that even after reentry would be of HUGE value to many many people on this planet. Including all those who would want to see if it could run Linux.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[Jafafa Hots]

says the anonymous coward, too afraid to risk looking like ANYTHING.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[d3ac0n]

Why not just build most of the structural components from Magnesium, or an Aluminum-Magnesium composite?

Magnesium burns at high enough temperatures, I would imagine that would include the several thousand degrees of reentry heat. Just let the thing fall back to earth and watch the light show as it automatically incinerates itself.

As a bonus, Magnesium is very very light, making the satellites a bit easier to launch.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[untouchableForce]

You're clearly not very bright, and have little knowledge of this subject.

Yes it failed to deploy, that does not mean the technology does not work. Every technological break through has failures. If everything was considered useless that failed the first time we'd be a hell of a lot further behind.

That's funny... it seems like they are stealing our technology.

Finally to complete the icing on the cake. If you think this, top-secret, military spy-satellite was made in China you are completely ignorant of how the military in the US works.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[coyotl]

It just seems to me that most of the 'high tech' in this satellite will be melted or burned into unrecognizable slag.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[dbIII]

Good point - it's more cost effective to look at the crashed parts than bribing the defence contractor.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[vivian]

Self destruct systems have mass and volume. That is a very tight resource on something sent into space.

So its cheaper not to build in a self destruct in and instead have to carry enough extra fuel for a de-orbit, or send up a missile to shoot the thing down (that has some chance of missing too)if that plan fails?

Re:Oh bullshit.

[toddestan]

Self destruct systems have mass and volume. That is a very tight resource on something sent into space.

Keep in mind that it's financed and paid for by the US Government though.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[tap]

But it's not a demonstration of functional ASAT capability. The only reason this missle can hit the the satallite is because it's orbit has decayed to the point where it's a week away from crashing to the Earth. It can't hit normal satellites.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[lhorn]

Well, in a couple of years it will not be a problem that high-tech satellites get in the wrong hands. The bleeding edge technology will be protected by DMCA and inaccessible according to WIPO http://www.wipo.int/ so the only wrong hands belong to pirates. And they will only poke at the debris with their cutlasses without understanding, if the lumps didn't sink their fragile wooden ships outright. Rejoice! Our precious IP will soon be safe!

Re:Oh bullshit.

[khallow]

It's not that tight a resource. A more serious problem is that the self-destruct system might trigger accidentally and create a nasty debris cloud out of what was formerly a valuable satellite.

Re:Oh bullshit.

[khallow]

I did read the article and I agree with the other poster. It's to destroy a huge intelligence liability. A demonstration of ASAT might be gravy, but it's not that valuable otherwise they'd have nailed other reentering satellites by now, or even set up a proper test (with targets that have some ability to dodge, just like real satellites).

Re:Oh bullshit.

[mfrank]

They *have* a full tank of hydrazine fuel, half a ton of it. If the thing had *ever* worked they'd use the last bit of it to deorbit into the Pacific Ocean. If they had a self destruct on it, that probably wouldn't be working either.

Hey, how about making a film about this??

[sholdowa]

We could send up a group of octogenarian actors in a shuttle... whadya mean it's already been done!

Simple enough

[Nushio]

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 :)

I can imagine that conversation

[techpawn]

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?!

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:Not the same as Chinese Test

[sm62704]

as well as to ensure that no one unscrupulous gets any technology

Er, didn't some unscrupulous people put the damned thing up ther ein the first place? I mean, us?

Re:Not the same as Chinese Test

[Tired and Emotional]

If they don't shoot it down all the pieces will re-enter, no almost about it.

As for the fuel, I expect you mean plutonium. No propellant is going to make it to impact. So the question is - do you want to spread very small concentrations of plutonium over a wide area where you can't clean it up or have to go find a few concentrated dollops after impact, like they had to do in Canada.

Seems rather like the Quentin Crisp approach to re-entry management to me. Don't lose your nerve - after 5 reentries it won't make any difference!

Re:Not the same as Chinese Test

[Anonymous Coward]

Not even remotely similar to the Chinese test. The chinese satellite was in a useful orbit (emphasis on was).

The American bird is already in a severely decayed orbit, and the pentagon isn't planning a shootdown until the shuttle has landed so that will mean it will even be decayed that much more.

The debris field left over after the interception will be in the same usless/decaying orbit; bouncing off the upper reaches of the atmosphere. The debris field will de-orbit in the same manner as the intact sattelite, but any large/dangerous pieces are much more likely NOT to make it to the ground.

Re:Not the same as Chinese Test

[bugnuts]

I highly doubt the fuel is plutonium. Unfortunately, I don't remember the actual name (starts with a 'q'?), but it's highly poisonous and can contaminate things. However, it'd probably burn up when the satellite hit the atmosphere.

If the sat came down the size of a bus, it'd probably hit the ocean (or ground). If it came down fragmented, it'd probably burn up. I just hope that this action won't cause must more junk in space. However, since nobody has ever been harmed by a man-made object falling from space, this course of action seems rather... suspicious.

Re:Not the same as Chinese Test

[Frosty Piss]

...more than likely is to make sure the fuel doesn't make it past the very upper atmosphere...

The satellite contains relativly minor amounts of hydrazine, which while toxic, would almost certainly dissipate / burn off in the atmosphere as its tank disintegrated. In the (very unlikely) event the tank made it back to Earth, the same thing would happed as the tank ruptured on ground impact: The gas would dissipate of burn off. Hydrazine leaks are fairly common on F-16 bases (used in the F-16's Emergency Power Unit).

The two real reason would be to demonstrate that such a thing can be done, and also to insure that the technology itself is destroyed. -- No Jail For Pot

Re:Not the same as Chinese Test

[AK Marc]

It doesn't take much energy to push a gram-sized piece of metal back out into an untrackable orbit when you consider that small thrusters reposition satellites in low orbit all of the time.

An impulse (single explosion) can't create a stable orbit. It will create an eliptical orbit with the perigee lower than the current decayed orbit. That will mean that it will necessarily be unstable and fail as soon or sooner than if it hadn't been pushed out away from the earth. So, in a nearly completely failed orbit, pushing something further away will make its orbit fail faster. Small thrusters are fired in a way to change not just altitude, but velocity as well to make sure the higher orbit is stable (roughly circular). It isn't comperable to this event.

Re:Not the same as Chinese Test

[dreamchaser]

There is no 'blast'. The missle they are using has no explosives. It uses the kinetic energy of impact to shatter the target into little pieces. Those pieces will reenter.

Controlled de-orbit?

[Dr_Banzai]

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.

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[Domint]

I'm no rocket-scientist, but one could argue the logistics (and subsequent pricetag) of capturing and redeploying a satellite are far, far greater than simply blowing it up. Doubly so when it is in such a decayed orbit.

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[jlas]

If the U.S. had a system that could hijack a spy satellite and land it wherever it wanted, that would be a much more impressive display than just blowing it up. It achieves the same goal as knocking out someone's spy satellite and gets the goods (or at least whatever makes it to the ground) for ourselves. The simple answer is that attaching a booster is much more difficult than just smashing it.

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[schematix]

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.

The problem with your idea comes down to it being far too complex of a process for the intended result. Launching a rocket to match up with another satellite is much more difficult than in sounds. The bottom line is that it's much easier to get close to something and explode than it is to dock with it and then try to control. In the end you get the same result so you might as well go with the cheaper and easier solution.

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[evanbd]

Because that's a lot harder. If all they wanted was for it to deorbit, they wouldn't be doing anything -- the satellite in question never reached its final orbit, and is rapidly decaying. It will reenter fairly soon if left alone. Presumably they're trying to prevent it from reentering where Russia or China or someone might find the pieces and get clues about our capabilities -- it's pretty clearly a recent-generation spy satellite. If they are careful about how they shoot it down, they may get some control over where it reenters.

Currently, we don't have any (non-classified, anyway) capability to attach an unmanned booster to an arbitrary orbitting satellite. And there isn't time to develop a custom solution before it reenters as the current orbit decays.

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[DerekLyons]

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?

Because that is much, much easier on TV than it is in real life. (And expensive as hell and requiring technologies we don't have to boot.)
 
 

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.

The space junk issue is being vastly over hyped. I discuss why in this post.

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[Oktober Sunset]

Ohhhh, they could launch it from a hollowed out volcano and it could capture space capsules too and hold the astronauts hostage.

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[phayes]

No explosion. The SM3 is a hit to kill warhead. The differing velocities will be more than enough to blow the satellite to smithereens, assuming that it works.

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[maxume]

I'm pretty sure the shuttle can do what you describe. This particular satellite certainly isn't worth the risk.

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[coredog64]

That would be great! I'd finally get to use the army of ninjas I've created.
Won't be so great for my love interest though :(

Re:Controlled de-orbit?

[jlas]

Well sure, the shuttle probably could, but that's not exactly a quick (i.e. wartime) response. I was more talking about this whole event being alleged saber-rattling, which I don't think it is, at least not primarily.

let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[FudRucker]

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...

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[stevedcc]

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...

Unless of course, the satellite stopped working because it's computer is bust. Then you'd have a big lump of explosives rolling around in space, and no control over it.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[FudRucker]

it does not have to be complicated just radio controlled so when the right signal with CTCSS squelch code & whatever else needed to be sure it does not get activated prematurely...

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[stevedcc]

you think the cost of putting into orbit explosives * all spy satellites + extra separate power & control system so they can be used if the battery / computer dies is less than the cost of sending a missile that you've already built against the occasional dud?

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[techpawn]

Then you'd have a big lump of explosives rolling around in space, and no control over it.

That on reentry would explode right?

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[Idiomatick]

Disclaimer: This post became more negative and runon than originally intended

...They are shooting it to prove they can shoot it. If they just wanted it gone they could tell the thrusters to crash it into the middle of the ocean. Aside from that, having a self destruct in it is crazy. Explosion = millions of bits of metal. These bits of metal are traveling at speeds measured in Km/s ... Spacecraft are shockingly fragile, hell i could probably take out a sattelite with a regular hammer, one that i can't swing at 12km/s. Blowing up things in space is stupid and could leave the whole of mankind earth locked. Without the option of expanding upwards people tend to look to expanding left and right so we end up trapping ourself on a rock then blowing ourself up. Yay....

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[Domint]

Yes, but then you also need to put in a bunch of safe-guards against someone figuring out the triggering mechanism and simply blowing all of our satellites up. The problem with that is the more systems and failsafes you add, the more complex the system becomes. Invariably this results in the weight of the total payload increasing, which is a big factor in getting things to orbit in the first place. Plus it creates more areas for error, such as a controlling CPU not functioning, rendering the satellite useless.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[moderatorrater]

Great idea. Then the smart ass 12 year old Polish kid's going to use a TV remote to blow it up. Aside from the added weight and technical complexity that this would add to the satellite, if those codes get hacked it's millions if not billions of dollars down the toilet. Maybe more, if they detonated the satellites at a strategically advantageous time.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[imemyself]

If they just wanted it gone they could tell the thrusters to crash it into the middle of the ocean.

My understanding is that they have no control over it because of a computer/communications problem.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[gnick]

Then you'd have a big lump of explosives rolling around in space, and no control over it. That on reentry would explode right? Most high-explosive doesn't explode when exposed to heat. It needs a good shock to get going (primary explosive - typically a blasting cap or primercord). But, it would probably burn just fine.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[peragrin]

Actually another poster to the grandparent pointed out all you need is it to explode in present of high heat source. As it reenters the atmosphere the outshell heats up setting off the explosive and destroying the target. no complicated computers or signals needed.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[Rorschach1]

I think Lockheed built this one, but anyway - that was my first thought too, an independent destruct mechanism with its own power source and receiver.

Aside from the safety issues involved (they're already handling fuel and ordnance emplacement during satellite assembly anyway) I think the main limitation would be weight. A destruct mechanism on a rocket's no big deal - they don't need much encouragement to blow up, usually. A linear shaped charge down the side of a solid rocket booster does the job quite nicely. As does a defective weld or air bubble in the fuel, for that matter.

But when you've got something the size of a bus totally packed with high-tech gadgets packaged to survive the rigors of launch and the harsh environment of space, how much explosive are you going to need to pack in there to destroy it all? Plus, in a vacuum you don't have atmosphere to compress and contribute to blast effects - that might not matter much when the explosives are inside the vehicle, but it can't help anything.

Rendering electronics unusable isn't hard. Blasting them into small enough pieces that you can't get any useful information from is much harder. Consider that the memory chip used to load an FPGA and configure it with who-knows-what kind of fancy crypto or signal processing algorithms might have a die not more than a millimeter or so on a side, encased in tough plastic or ceramic, maybe potted in epoxy, and sealed up in a machined aluminum chassis. Seems to me the best you could hope for there is to blast the spacecraft into enough pieces that even if they come down on land, no one's going to find them, or if they do, they won't realize what they've got.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[PacketShaper]

So the two arguments against the self destruct function are:

they might figure out our code and blow up our satellites
and

if the radio is dead (like on this current spy sat), it wont get the self-destruct signal

The solution to both is pretty obvious...set it to *auto* self-destruct if it looses contact with our ground stations (which send an encrypted "stay-alive" signal).

Then, if the radio fails, it self destructs automatically after say two weeks. There would also not be any kill signal for our enemies to crack and send... they would have to stop us from transmitting our "stay-alive" signal which is obviously much harder since it can be done from anywhere in the world where we have sat transmitters.

Just a thought...

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[FuturePastNow]

OK. I'll tell NASA and JPL to put explosives on their space probes, but I'll let you tell the Pentagon that their spy and military commsats need self-destructs. No foreign country will ever get access to those codes.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[Anonymous Coward]

ya, except that the whole problem here is that they can't communicate with the thing. normally they have a remote destruction mechanism, namely flying the thing so that it enters the atmosphere on a trajectory that lands it in the pacific ocean. who knows, there may in fact be an explosive self destruct mechanism on this satellite, as you recommend, but since they can communicate with it...

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[tomhath]

Self-destruct would be good, assuming they can communicate with the satellite. But if they could communicate with it, they would've commanded it to make a controlled de-orbit.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[Larkaen]

A self destruct on a satellite would likely add unwanted weight and danger for getting it off of the ground.

If that self destruct is explosive, I'm sure there would be a pretty negative reaction to having that in orbit; it'd be a 1 percent chance of a tiny bomb surviving reentry and hitting a populated area giving the media something to get overly excited about.

Also I don't trust NASA enough to fly bombs.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[vivian]

Why does it need to be remotely detonated? Surely they could put a trigger on the explosives that would fire when it reached a certain minimum altitude or sensed it was re-entering the atmosphere. No remote detonation required (so no security issues), and the thing will then only blow up once it is actually re-entering the atmosphere. It doesn't even have to blow it to smithereens - just break it up into small chunks that can burn up - say by using explosive bolts at certain key points etc in a much more controlled manner.
The satellite would be a little heavier, sure - but much cheaper than having to launch another whole missile up there to blow it up. It should be mandatory to have such a self destruct on any satellite that is over a certain size.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[DoctorStarks]

Right, and later on something will fail and it will explode unexpectedly.

The idea has been tried before (big surprise). The Russians used to deliberately blow up their satellites or rocket bodies, and in doing so produced an enormous amount of debris. They eventually saw that this wasn't the best idea.

Re:let this be a lesson to NASA/JPL (whoever)

[Wes Janson]

So they crack the signal and continue broadcast the "stay alive" signal AFTER we stop broadcasting, thus allowing it to de-orbit successfully without self-destructing. Sorry, but no go.

And what of those other ideas?

[Ngarrang]

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

Government decisionmaking process

[Sarten-X]

Nice cheap clean burnup, or expensive messy shooting? It worries me that our government even debated this, let alone reached the conclusion they did.

Re:Government decisionmaking process

[gnick]

Nice cheap clean burnup, or expensive messy shooting? Wrong debate. One big chunk crashing to earth possibly containing identifiable highly classified hardware, or many little chunks hopefully containing nothing recognizable. I actually give them the benefit of the doubt that, if they thought it would burn up cleanly, they would let it.

Re:Government decisionmaking process

[Sarten-X]

I'm just thinking it'd be less expensive and technically easier (considering cost and difficulty of tracking debris) to just meet the satellite & fix it or remove the secrets. Heck, maybe even reuse the parts on the next overly expensive "defense" system.

Re:Government decisionmaking process

[gnick]

I'm just thinking it'd be less expensive and technically easier (considering cost and difficulty of tracking debris) to just meet the satellite & fix it or remove the secrets. My understanding is that the current plan is to meet the satellite and "remove" the secrets. Actually recovering anything would be cost-prohibitive.

How about a disintegration ray?

[PrescriptionWarning]

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.

Re:How about a disintegration ray?

[FooAtWFU]

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. It's a lot easier to drag a satellite down to Earth (and have it burn up in the atmosphere) than it is to fling it into the Sun. It's called "delta-V" (the V stands for Velocity).

I have an idea for you! Instead of taking your trash out to the curb, where enterprising raccoons can knock it over and make a mess, why don't you drag all your garbage off to the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii and dump it in?

Incinerate

[Mishra100]

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.

Re:Incompetent

[esocid]

It was launched in December 2006 but almost immediately lost power and cannot be controlled. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor but the satellite's central computer failed shortly after launch.

I guess that's why they can't use the thrusters. I wonder how much this piece of junk cost, and how much money was taken from health care and education just to fund it. Why repair it when we can show other people how we blow stuff up?

Just Because They Can

[GodCandy]

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

They are spinning the media with a scare story

[Ellis D. Tripp]

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.

Re:They are spinning the media with a scare story

[Deadstick]

Every F-16 crash is a hydrazine spill...

rj

Re:They are spinning the media with a scare story

[duffbeer703]

Hydrazine is just the fuel for the control surfaces. Electrical power is provided by nuclear material. That material won't burn up.

The US has had ASAT technology for decades, which is why the Russian Navy has equipped its ships with shortwave radios.

Re:They are spinning the media with a scare story

[icebrain]

I really doubt this was a nuclear-powered satellite. Why go through all the expense and hassle of RTG's when solar panels are (relatively) cheap and common, and solar energy is free?

Yeah, you might get a bit of EMP protection, but I'd think with a huge-ass radar antenna you kinda negate that.

Re:They are spinning the media with a scare story

[evanbd]

Plenty of fuel-tank sized bits of satellites have survived uncontrolled reentry, when protected by the other bits of satellite. Propellant tanks are actually fairly good candidates for surviving largely intact -- ie, still in one piece and full of hydrazine, but broken enough to be leaking hydrazine everywhere. Also, it's surprisingly difficult to overstate the nastiness of hydrazine. It's flammable, explosive, corrosive, toxic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, and teratogenic -- all at very, very high potency. At least it's not radioactive. Monomethylhydrazine (which is widely used as a fuel in applications just like this; I don't know which variety of hydrazine is in use here) is one of the most potent carcinogens known -- a single drop applied to the skin of lab rats caused cancer in about 90% of cases in one study (more than that and the toxic effects dominated).

Seriously. The propellant tanks might or might not survive, but some large bits definitely will make it to the ground, and they might well contain hydrazine or have hydrazine on them from leaking / disintegrating tanks. If they do, you really, really, *really* wouldn't want to touch it. Souvenir gathering from crashed satellites (or Space Shuttles) can be very bad for your health.

Re:They are spinning the media with a scare story

[Dachannien]

The vehicle is already designed to withstand the stresses and temperatures of launch and maneuvering (Wikipedia notes that the catalyzed reaction can result in the reaction chamber reaching 800 deg C in a matter of milliseconds). It's possible that, depending on the containment used on board the craft, the hydrazine fuel could survive re-entry. Really, there's only one way to find out for sure, and the military doesn't intend on allowing that to happen. No offense, but considering that this is a classified multi-bazillion-dollar satellite, and you probably don't have security clearance, I'd consider the military's statement on the matter to be somewhat more reliable than your conclusions.

Re:They are spinning the media with a scare story

[typo83]

The hydrazine tank on the Columbia did survive re-entry, but was nearly depleted of hydrazine when it landed. This missile shoot can not possibly be characterized as an anti-satellite weapon since satellites in the orbit where this event occurs are not going to be satellites for much for than a few days longer. "Real" satellites are in much higher orbits, beyond the reach of this missile.

Orbit Pollution

[the computer guy nex]

"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?

Cost Effectiveness.

[gandhi_2]

Since the Chinese have proven they can do this, it's reasonable to assume they can do it cheaper. Maybe they pentagon could outsource this satellite shoot-down.

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?"

Re:Cost Effectiveness.

[nateb]

loco, ese. HTH. HAND.

Re:Incompetent

[Domint]

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.

ASAT

[dedazo]

Too bad they decided not to field the original ASAT system fired from F-15s. Now they have to spend a crapload of money on mods to a Standard missile.

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.

Re:ASAT

[cmowire]

The mods to hit a non-manuvering target are probably not that bad. Besides, The Aegis / SM system is already being upgraded to knock out ballistic missiles. Plus, the test results there are much better than the results from the national missile defense system.

Both the original ASAT system and the Aegis are only useful for low orbiting targets. So it's probably more useful to have it as part of a theater defense setup more than something you need to have enough warning to launch an F-15 at.

But, yah, the smart money's on it being a demonstration to Russia and China.

I wonder

[s31523]

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.

Re:I wonder

[sm62704]

Option 4: all of the above
Option 5: option four plus some shit we slashdotters haven't thought of

Re:Incompetent

[TooMuchToDo]

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.

Shooting it down?

[sm62704]

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".

BAD idea

[d474]

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.

Re:BAD idea

[snl2587]

...or they could calculate the trajectory of the satellite as it is, figure out where it would land with its current momentum, and then shoot something to collide with it to make it land somewhere in the U.S.

And here I though the aerospace industry was full of physicists....

Re:Incompetent

[QuantumRiff]

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.

Re:Incompetent

[Jaysyn]

Cheap shot, I know, but was it running Windows?

DESTROY MISSILE!

[porkpickle]

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

Re:ASAT launched from carrier?

[YrWrstNtmr]

do we even have these weapons?

Apparently, we do. And it's from a cruiser, not a carrier.

I know an ASAT weapon was launched from an f16 (i think)

F-15, firing an ASM-135

Why demonstrate ASAT?

[Bullfish]

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.

Re:Why demonstrate ASAT?

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

All the simulations in the world aren't worth 1 actual shot. And it's quite hard to keep a shot like this secret.

Re:Why demonstrate ASAT?

[Jonathan_S]

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?

My understanding is that they will be shooting a Navy SM-3 missile. That's the missile component of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (basically the counter-part to the Army's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system).

The fact that an exo-atmospheric intercept missile, designed to hit warheads abover earth's atmosphere, is also capable of hitting a satellite in very low orbit ain't exactly a big secret.

You've gotta admit...

[ChePibe]

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!

Re:Incompetent

[ddusza]

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

Re:Incompetent

[wattrlz]

It was launched in December 2006 but almost immediately lost power and cannot be controlled. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor but the satellite's central computer failed shortly after launch.

I guess that's why they can't use the thrusters. I wonder how much this piece of junk cost, and how much money was taken from health care and education just to fund it. Why repair it when we can show other people how we blow stuff up? So, would you rather take another $1.8 billion dollars to have the same incompetents build a satelite repair-robot or just take a few dozen million and risk the setback of loosing a shuttle while having the same incompetents try to catch the thing in low earth orbit and bring it safely back to earth? Personally I think we should just launch a little satelite with big thrusters and a grapple of some sort to glomp onto the defective uuber-satelite and adjust its orbit so it'll land on US soil, but what do I know?

Re:your sig

[DirkGently]

"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.

Mg

[jbeaupre]

Better yet, build it out of something flammable (or as much as possible). Like magnesium. Light weight and self immolating.

Am I the only one...

[sirgoran]

... To notice that the "preferred" solution to any problem placed before George Bush is to launch an attack against it?

-Goran

Re:Am I the only one...

[robert899]

Yes you are the only one.

Just out of curiousity

[Namalic]

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.

5 minutes until self-destruct

[ruggerboy]

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.

Re:5 minutes until self-destruct

[dotancohen]

So far as I've been led to understand, all manned aeroborne US military craft have self-destruct capability, but it is local-detonation only. No remote detonation, and therefore, none on unmanned craft. Just a short while ago a /. poster commented on the data destruction mechanisms installed on the AWACS plane he was stationed on, so apparently, there are multiple levels of self-induced break-it.

Re:5 minutes until self-destruct

[mdarksbane]

Yes, and on a satellite where every gram launches into space matters, not to mention the costs of losing the satellite if that system fails, I'm sure it's high on their priority list.

Re:5 minutes until self-destruct

[YrWrstNtmr]

So far as I've been led to understand, all manned aeroborne US military craft have self-destruct capability, but it is local-detonation only.

Someone led you down the wrong road. Have you never seen pictures of a crashed military aircraft?

Re:5 minutes until self-destruct

[dotancohen]

Of course they crash. Not every going-down situation warrants a self-destruct. That said, I'm in infantry, not the Air Force, and we do hear too many AF myths. Oh, and not the American infantry, either.

In other news... Dead Horse Mercilessly Beaten

[t33jster]

I must be missing something. The satellite is FALLING. We're going to shoot it DOWN?!?!

It's far less sinister than that...

[Bryan Gividen]

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.

Re:It's far less sinister than that...

[paanta]

You're on to something. I mean, come on, how can you possibly expect them NOT to shoot down a satellite? I can count on three toes the number of things more awesome than shooting down a satellite with a missile.

1) Blowing up an asteroid with a nuke 2) Landing a space ship on the sun 3) Downing a UFO before it has the chance to report back to its home world

Number 4 is CLEARLY shooting down a satellite with a missile.

Ballistic Missile Defense

[iamlucky13]

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.

Re:Ballistic Missile Defense

[darkwhite]

Here they've got a target that won't behave as predictably A satellite with no maneuvering capability behaves much more predictably than any rocket.

Re:Ballistic Missile Defense

[DerekLyons]

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).

Almost completely incorrect. You don't think a quasi operational test like this won't also involve multiple ships, ground support, documentation, etc... etc...? Furthermore, the target is behaving perfectly predictable over the short term (days).

Re:Ballistic Missile Defense

[darkwhite]

A ballistic missile is predictable in the cruise portion of its flight. That's great, but its trajectory in the cruise portion is determined by its launch, which happened less than 20 minutes ago, and it releases chafe and decoys, so if you're tracking by infrared or radar, you have a problem. I know the latest Russian ICBMs (and MIRVs) can maneuver not just "a little", but enough to make targeting non-trivial - not sure if this happens during cruise and reentry or during reentry only, I think both.

The satellite does none of those things. Its trajectory is known days in advance, and it doesn't maneuver. The maneuvering and the chafe are there in the late reentry phase (due to asymmetric drag you mentioned and parts burning off of it), but it will have to be shot well in advance of that if they want the desired effect.

Re:Incompetent

[sholden]

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).

Once gain - tinfoil over facts

[DerekLyons]

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".

Re:Once gain - tinfoil over facts

[Mansing]

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.

Well, duh ... this is /. ... no technical expertise required.

Re:Once gain - tinfoil over facts

[AK Marc]

Since you claim it possible, please desctibe the orbit (as a elipse) of such an event that doesn't result in a perigee lower than the current orbit. If this were in high orbit, there could be lots and lots of problems, but in low orbit, the pieces blown way out will be highly eliptical and will decay even faster as they pass closer to the Earth. If you find that an incorrect statement, please explain how you take a circular orbit, add a single push (in any direction) and end up with a stable orbit further out than where you started.

Re:Once gain - tinfoil over facts

[DerekLyons]

Unless this is some highly-controlled demolition of the internal structures, "blowing up" means pieces will expand away from the satellite's center of gravity at very high velocities. Some will be blown towards earth, some will remain in the decaying orbit, and some will be projected away from earth at very high velocity, possibly to assume new non-decaying orbits and thus contributing to space junk.

If you were to blow up the bird using a contact fuse, such that the warhead exploded inside the bird... sure. (Aside from the fact that both bird and impactor would be destroyed by the impact.) But using a proximity fuse such that the explosion is entirely outside and to one side of the target... no. You won't have bits propelled into non decaying orbits.
 
Even if you do have an explosion inside the bird - you make it a small one such that there isn't enough energy to propel anything towards a stable orbit.

Re:Once gain - tinfoil over facts

[frogzilla]

"This bird is in a decaying orbit."

Bird in this context is jargon. Jargon is often used as a shorthand by those in the know and can make their lives easier in many ways. It has also the wonderful side benefit of making sure that those who are unfamiliar with the technical issues feel dumb. So if you really want to help those unfamiliar with the technical issues don't use jargon. If you don't want to help and want to look like a wise, mysterious druid then by all means use jargon. Unfortunately I think that most of us would rather see the wise, mysterious druid crushed by a falling lintel stone.

Also it sounds a bit like movie air force talk. I'm thinking of Top Gun a little too much after hearing it. Maybe that's really what's bugging me.

Re:Once gain - tinfoil over facts

[Frosty Piss]

For a supposedly technical site, it seems very few Slashdotters are familiar with the tecnichal issues ... this bird ... the bird ...

Derek, it's not a bird, OK? It's a satellite.

Re:Once gain - tinfoil over facts

[reed]

"Rants before facts seems to be the motto."

You're new here right?

no, it's not the hydrazine

[Reality Master 201]

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.

Re:no, it's not the hydrazine

[geekoid]

"...With a boiling point of 114C, I'd imagine the bulk of the hydrazine would be gone well before the thing hit the ground."

You would have a point, if it wasn't in a container designed to shield it from heat. You know, the 800C it gets when activated? Do you think all the propellant blows up in it's containers every time they use it?

DO you even know HOW it's used?

Water's Boiling point is 100c yet the space shuttle manages to bring water back down through reentry. Why? BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING PROTECTED. granted it's a more elaborated protection, since it's designed for people to survive.

You people's ranting paranoia is really a disservice to /.

Really wish you people would go away. No, wild speculation based on your ill conceived biases are not helpful, nor do they count as reasoned counter points.

"...Bush administration doesn't give two shits about is bad PR."

That's not true, there just REALLY bad at it. I mean, they do try.

Stupid git.

Re:no, it's not the hydrazine

[Reality Master 201]

That was more than talking out of your ass, that was shouting out of your ass. Congratulations, sir or madame - spectacular.

I often wondered

[kellyb9]

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.

Re:I often wondered

[Temkin]

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. Ever read "The Killing Star"?

Re:I often wondered

[glucoseboy]

I remember reading a passage where someone made the comment that aliens perceived Humans as insane as all of our nuclear missiles were pointed at ourselves. "What race intentionally creates the means of it's own destruction?"

Re:I often wondered

[mangu]

"What race intentionally creates the means of it's own destruction?"

A race of which some members don't know the difference between "its" and "it's"?

Gee....

[rwsilva]

If only there was a shuttle nearby to pick it up on their way home....

Re:Gee....

[spidey3]

Orbital mechanics are such that is is very unlikely that this would be possible. Shuttle cannot go beyond low earth orbit, and orbital plane changes are VERY expensive with respect to fuel.

Anti-anti-satellite missle

[kyoorius]

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 better idea... harpoon interceptor missle

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:A better idea... harpoon interceptor missle

[NXIL]

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 Great white satellite...international space station...could get ugly, Ishmael.

Re:A better idea... harpoon interceptor missle

[Rorschach1]

For another craft to match velocities with the satellite (not just smash into it), it'd have to be capable of achieving orbit itself. That's NOT going to be a small missile like an SM3. What you're talking about is a space tug, and it'd require a real booster - a Pegasus being probably about the smallest thing you could put it up with. Grabbing a big, unwieldy (and maybe tumbling) satellite is also not a simple problem.

The tug's also going to have to have enough fuel to impart enough change in velocity on the satellite that it reenters quickly enough to be predicted with enough accuracy to, say, drop it in the Pacific. On the whole, it's easier to just toss something up into its path (like an SM3's kinetic warhead) and let it smash itself to pieces.

China's debris to remain for thousands of years...

[KH2002]

The satellite the Chinese shot down was in a much higher orbit, and that debris is likely to stay up for *hundreds* of years... It's worse than that -- according to MIT space security expert Geoffrey Forden, "China's debris will be in orbit for thousands of years (and I mean that literally). ... [The US shoot-down] would create a debris field but no where near the sort of debris catastrophe that China created last year."

The two shoot-downs are not equivalent, which of course won't prevent agenda-driven comparisons...

Can't Believe It Hasent been said yet

[Hawkeye05]

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

What's that old saying?

[davidbrit2]

Life imitates art? Or I guess in this case, Ace Combat 5.

Re:your sig

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"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. It just means that you can't measure intelligence by somebody's opinion.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Capture

[Wowsers]

The Space Shuttle is up in orbit at the moment, why not chase the satellite to capture it?

Re:Our reasons are better.

[msuarezalvarez]

As opposed to the US, which has brought so much good to the world lately, I guess.

(By the way, China is as communist as the US is a free market...)

Legal advise please?

[chord.wav]

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

Reminds me of the Exploding Whale

[shewfig]

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.

Re:Reminds me of the Exploding Whale

[Forbman]

Yes, but they used dynamite on it. They probably should have used a low-velocity explosive, like ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate+Fuel Oil). Less sharp shock waves, but probably would have broken the sorry thing into better managed chunks less far away.

The reporter who covered it, Paul Linnman (sp), is still on the morning show on 1190 AM KEX in Portland.

Someone give parent a +5 Insightful

[pragma_x]

. 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

Makes sense to me. I was thinking the same thing.

Not so

[WindBourne]

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.

It would sure be embarrassing

[Cro Magnon]

if we miss.

Re:It would sure be embarrassing

[Carbon016]

*GLONASS satellite explodes* "Haha, you thought you could buzz over our carrier and get away with it..err..I mean..sorry about the miss."

Re:Our reasons are better.

[stevedcc]

I'm not sure that firing a ground-based weapon into space is militarising it. Isn't it more about not leaving weapons up thre?

Another crap headline

[EmbeddedJanitor]

This is another example of headline esculation.

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.

Re:Hypocrites

[Shados]

Well, there's a difference between shooting a missile at a sattelite to test the missile, and shooting a missile at a sattelite thats going to fall in someone's backyard if they don't... Also a big difference in that they're actually trying to find a solution as to not have 127041702140 debris in space...

So yeah...err..totally different (and i'm not American, so I'm not defending my own nation or anything).

I'll take may chances, here in Hawaii, that

[Babu 'God' Hoover]

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.

What's wrong with blowing it up?

[darkvizier]

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.

Major differences

[WindBourne]

1. 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).
2. 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).

Re:Hypocrites

[smitingpurpleemu]

You are extraordinarily naive if you don't think that this is a weapons test for the Americans, and the debris is a non-issue trumped up as anti-China propaganda by the US Defense Department and the American media.

Re:Hypocrites

[Shados]

You are extraordinarily naive if you don't think that this is a weapons test for the Americans

They're being opportunist, of course. But that sattelite needs to be dealt with either way. But you're right to some extent... but for the other part...

and the debris is a non-issue trumped up as anti-China propaganda by the US Defense Department and the American media

The debris are a NON-ISSUE?! Learn what you're talking about please.

In front of the satellite

[Thelasko]

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.

Space tractor anyone?

[hobb0001]

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.

Re:Incompetent

[bark76]

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?

Re:WARNING: GNAA

[techwrench]

Dirt Bag!

WARNING: ProxyAV has detected a virus in this
file!

File has been dropped.

ProxyAV Administrator: unknown

2008-02-14 15:55:56-05:00EST
Hardware serial number: N/A
ProxyAV (Version 3.1.1.7(31501)) - http://www.bluecoat.com/
Antivirus Vendor: Kaspersky Labs
Scan Engine Version: 5.0.0.37
Pattern File Version: 080214.185824.567002 (Timestamp: 2008.02.14 18:58:24)

Machine name: ProxyAV
Machine IP address: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Server: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Client: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Protocol: ICAP

Virus: "Exploit.HTML.DialogArg" found!
URL: http://safesite.on.nimp.org/

A new toy to play with :P

[Petaris]

I think the Navy just wants to try out their new railgun. :P

Probably does have self destruct

[untree]

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.

Personally

[kitsunewarlock]

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!

Isn't this what they developed the Shuttle for?

[hcdejong]

ie. retrieving satellites from orbit?

Re:Our reasons are better.

[Shakrai]

(By the way, China is as communist as the US is a free market...)

You may have a point there. But at the end of the day I can sit here on Slashdot and say pretty much anything I want about the United States, George W. Bush, Congress, our Allies, etc, etc, etc. At the end of the day I can practice whatever religion I want in the United States.

Try living in China and criticizing your Government or following Falun Gong and let me know how well it works out for you.

Re:Brilliant! +6 insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:WARNING: GNAA

[Daimanta]

Warning, shock site. And a very nasty one at that.

Still dangerous

[mangu]

[The US shoot-down] would create a debris field but no where near the sort of debris catastrophe that China created last year

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.

Re:Still dangerous

[Sean Riordan]

I don't buy the can't be shot down point. It it were to be hit (hard) from the front relative to it velocity vector there would be enough loss of momentum to cause it to come down. I would think that would qualify as shot down, though not in a Hollywood like dramatic splash down kind of way. Effective nonetheless. Calculated correctly this should allow some control of where the bits would fall. The problem I think would be getting the missile in line with the angle of attack needed while retaining enough oomph to cause a large loss of momentum on the part of the space vehicle in question.

Re:Still dangerous

[mangu]

It it were to be hit (hard) from the front relative to it velocity vector there would be enough loss of momentum to cause it to come down

Sure, but how hard can you hit? It's not as if it were hitting a stone wall, it's hitting an exploding missile, that is, a fire ball. It's travelling at close to 8000 meters, or five miles, per second.

The densest parts, like batteries, fuel tanks, and possibly the main camera mirror, will go through that explosion ten times faster than a bullet. Do explosions stop bullets? Not unless it's precisely concentrated at the exact point. There is no way the explosion could transfer enough momentum to the densest parts to significantly affect their orbit.

The flimsiest parts like, for instance, the solar panels, will be shredded to very small pieces by the explosion, of course, but those are exactly the parts that would burn first when entering the atmosphere.

Re:Still dangerous

[Sean Riordan]

Exploding munitions wouldn't be optimum for hitting the vehicle IMHO as most of the energy is essentially wasted. Better to drive a mass into it around the center of mass/gravity I would think. Logistically a bitch, but far more effective than trying to leverage fireworks against orbital momentum. The idea isn't to blow it up, just to give it a shove in direct opposition to the forward motion to subtract out as much momentum as possible thereby making it fall out of orbit. Granted, since it appears the NRO owns the soon to be space junk there may be a reason to go for maximum carnage, but I don't see how explosives are going to be a useful solution. Better to control the impact point if the intent is to retain control of onboard goodies. Luckily that is also the best way to ensure safety of people at said impact point. Getting a significant mass in place to pull it off is likely unrealistic or at least prohibitively expensive.

Re:Still dangerous

[pizpot]

..use a mass, not a bomb.

Re:Still dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

Err ... it's about 2.5 tons according to the reports I've seen (referring to your "11 ton" comment further down). And by breaking it up with the missile shot, much more of the satellite will burn up or otherwise disintegrate on re-entry. First, the re-entring pieces will be smaller to begin with. They will also tend to be structurally compromised relative to the intact satellite leading to further breakup in the atmosphere.

If they don't hit it, it will still break up on re-entry, and still create a debris field. But likely much larger pieces will survive to impact. You may have been working satellite control systems for 24 years - but I've been working re-entry physics for at least 5 years and satellite operations for 14.

And yes, hydrazine is nasty stuff. The references I've seen don't show it to be quite that nasty (1 drop = fatal), but that's splitting hairs - it's bad stuff. I certainly wouldn't want half a metric ton of it breaking open in my back yard. If you want to increase the odds that the tank full of this stuff makes it to the ground intact (to break up on impact), then by all means, let the satellite re-enter intact so that the rest of the structure can shield it from re-entry forces and heat.

Re:Still dangerous

[blincoln]

Letting the satellite re-enter atmosphere unbroken would be the only way to make sure it does NOT create a debris field.

I am not incredibly knowledgeable in this field, but isn't there at least one Way To Be Sure(tm) that the satellite is completely vapourized? Of course, that's banned by treaties at the moment.

Re:Still dangerous

[SETIGuy]

Sure, but how hard can you hit? It's not as if it were hitting a stone wall, it's hitting an exploding missile, that is, a fire ball. It's travelling at close to 8000 meters, or five miles, per second. Trying to destroy a spacecraft with a fireball would be pretty stupid, and I doubt the U.S. military would be that stupid. What you want is a slowly expanding cloud of massive objects to intersect the satellite at high velocity. Lot's of explosives aren't necessary because you don't need to get the shrapnel to high velocity.

Since you've got 8 km/s of orbital velocity and probably around 3 km/s on the interceptor, you're probably talking about 10 km/s at the intercept. The heat of vaporization of iron is 250 kJ/kg and this thing has a mass of 11 tons, so we can assume 2.7 GJ will do quite a number on this satellite. Sure, it's not made of iron, but you don't really need to liquify it to destroy it. Satellites are usually only built to survive launch stresses, not impacts.

Anyhow at an impact velocity of 10 km/s 2.7 GJ would require a impactors with a total mass of 50 kg, probably in the form of lead or depleted uranium for compactness. To be thorough in your destruction, you probably want multiple small impactors, say 500 of them at 100 grams each. The total mass of the warhead depends upon how close you can get to the target. If you could be ensured a direct hit, 50kg would suffice. But it's likely that this won't be a direct hit, so you'll need to cover a larger area than the satellite itself.

We'll assume the satellite projects an aspect of 600 square meters (say about 60 meters by 10 meters) and that our shot cloud covers a circular area. Once your impact parameter exceeds 14 meters your warhead size goes up as the square of the distance. At 25 meters, you need 160 kg. At 50 meters you need 650 kg. At 100 meters you need 2.6 tons. At a kilometer you need 260 tons.

The only thing determined by the yield of the charge that scatters these impactors is the timing. How long before impact do you need to set it off and how accurate does your timing need to be? These are left as an exercise for the reader. If I were designing the thing I'd keep the scattering charge as small as possible. The bulk of the constraints are set by the trajectory. In a head on trajectory, there is nothing wrong with scattering the impactors 5 seconds or more before impact. For an interceptor that travels vertically, the maximum timing probably depends upon atmospheric properties.

Given the geometry of the likely impacts, it is unlikely there would be significant amounts of ejecta inserted into long lasting orbits. The worst cases would be insertions into elliptical orbits, but they would circularize quickly at low altitude due to the low perigee. It should be possible to choose in impact point that will minimize risk to other vehicles.

FWIW, I do not design space weaponry, and I do not know the actual capabilities of U.S. anti-satellite weaponry. I just know how to break things in a practical and sometimes dramatic manner.

Re:Still dangerous

[zoltamatron]

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).

Okay, I have a question....if you know there is a chance of these satellites breaking and eventually coming down, then can't you make fuel tanks that are designed to fail during re-entry? I understand that they need to be tough to hold in the pressurized gas, but do they really need to be tough enough to take the stresses of de-orbit?

Re:Still dangerous

[multi io]

If they let this satellite come down without intercepting it, it's very likely that the hydrazine tank would survive the re-entry. It would breach (fuel lines ripping apart) and release the hydrazine into the environment. By shooting it down you're ensuring that the tank is blown apart in orbit and burns up, including the hydrazine, on re-entry. So shooting it down *is* a reasonable option.

As for the space junk, my understanding is that almost all the pieces that are produced by the explosion will re-enter within the next few orbits. Even the pieces that are accelerated by the explosion (and by far the most ones will be decelerated because the missile hits the satellite at front (seen in flight direction) at high velocity) will just enter an elliptic orbit whose perigee will be at the same altitude as the one where the explosion occured, where the atmospheric drag is high enough to bring the piece down in a short time.

Re:Still dangerous

[DerekLyons]

I don't buy the can't be shot down point. It it were to be hit (hard) from the front relative to it velocity vector there would be enough loss of momentum to cause it to come down.

Other than the fact that delivering that amount of energy in that small an area is roughly equivalent to a small nuclear weapon.... that's an excellent plan.
 
Hint: This is what we call sarcasm. Your plan sucks and is based on utter and complete ignorance of science. You don't even have any common sense - you seem to not noticed that it takes a huge honkin' rocket to get it up there, which implies it takes a huge honkin' amount of energy to reverse that situation. You aren't even smart enough to know that you don't know - you state your ignorant opinion as though it was fact.

Re:Still dangerous

[srhill]

I totally agree .. stupid idea. And what happens when they miss? I mean, it's not like they can use GPS guided missiles to find it. Hitting something that's way up there, extremely cold, and running away from you at 30,000 kph is not exactly a trivial operation. It's also going to be a real bummer when the missile slams back into Earth after 300 years.

Re:Still dangerous

[donscarletti]

Other than the fact that delivering that amount of energy in that small an area is roughly equivalent to a small nuclear weapon.... that's an excellent plan.

Hint: This is what we call sarcasm. Your plan sucks and is based on utter and complete ignorance of science. You don't even have any common sense - you seem to not noticed that it takes a huge honkin' rocket to get it up there, which implies it takes a huge honkin' amount of energy to reverse that situation. You aren't even smart enough to know that you don't know - you state your ignorant opinion as though it was fact.

Firstly, the energy to deorbit a satellite is not the same as that required to put it up, returning space capsules and decommissioned satilites require very small burns with their thrusters to in effect transfer the satellite to an elliptic transfer orbit that intersects earth's atmosphere around the large ocean that it is to be put into. The Apollo service module weighed slightly less than the Delta-IV rocket's maximum load to LEO (24 tonnes) and was able to perform a trans-earth injection burn and was able to bring a multi tonne capsule home from THE FRIGGING MOON while also providing life support, electricity and communications systems. Earth from geosynchronous can be done by satellite thrusters when a parking orbit isn't acceptable. Earth from LEO requires nothing more than a computerised bottle rocket.

Secondly, even if deorbiting required the same energy as orbiting, 20 tons of solidified RDX/PETN mix (which can by easily lifted to the right orbit with a Titan IV or Atlas V rocket) can release far more energy than any rocket ever built, not quite what the GP was suggesting, but non-nuclear none the less.

Thirdly, even in the ludicrous hypothetical situation where it did require a nuclear weapon to provide the energy it wouldn't matter since the US government has plenty of them currently mounted on large and pinpoint accurate space vehicles that it would use if required to despite the space weapons treaty.

Fourthly, you've got to seriously think about posting anonymously next time you say someone is wrong in such as rude way while showing some serious misunderstandings of the physics yourself. And is Derek Lyons your real name? If so you really should think of some anonymity if you want to act like a jerk. Slashdot has always been a great place for semi-informed people to post their ideas just like the grandparent and parent did. There are probably people here involved in rocketry, astrophysics, guidance systems and such, but not enough to make this discussion good. I've done some physics in university and read up a bit about the subject and that's all we really expect from a person who is part of a slashdot discussion. If the USAF asked me to plan the mission in question, I'd tell them that I'm not qualified, but in slashdot I can give my 2 cents. If you don't like it then maybe you should start reading peer-reviewed journals or something.

Re:Still dangerous

[mfrank]

Just use a cloud of sand dispersed by a small charge. And the interceptor is just straight up; it doesn't need lateral velocity; it just needs to be in the way. Whatever sand doesn't hit the satellite comes straight down. The goal is to shred it up enough so that everything, including the hydrazine, burns up before it hits the ground.

Re:Still dangerous

[fbjon]

A very good point, but instead of driving a mass into it which would be a bitch to do, use a net: a weight that splits into four a number of seconds before impact, and string a fairly strong but light net between them. The net catches the entire satellite, the weights impart enough total force (slowly, not with a rough jerk) to cause the satellite to slowly drop, probably bending all appendages to scrap in the process. No debris results. As long as things stay in one piece, it should be easy to calculate where the sat will drop.

Of course, the velocities involved are high, so the net can't be just any old fishnet, but perhaps a large number of nets in succession. As long as the satellite touches the net taking it with it, long lines on the weights would start to reel out, slowly getting dragged along with the sat, thus slowing it down just enough to make it start falling predictably.

Crazy? Perhaps.

Re:Still dangerous

[vldmr_krn]

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.

Objective: test your prototype anti-satellite weapon system. China did a successful test last year, and we're playing catch up. This makes us look weak... so instead of admitting that it's a weapon test, we say that it's a virtually routine cleanup... It's not the case that the government is increasing its power without telling its citizens, it's merely the government using its already awesome power to do some good.

The media reports this official story and people mostly take it for fact (why not?). But some of us scratch our heads and realize that it makes no sense to shoot down a satellite by blowing it up because you're afraid of it falling down. I'd be far more impressed if they contracted the lowest bidder to bring down the satellite onto a prepared location with payment upon success.

I sometimes tell myself that I am lucky, because I am present to witness the decline of a great civilization. I can still make a good life for myself, and I get to see society crumble around me, and perhaps even fall with me... which would be kind of poetic.

Kessler Syndrome

[GPS Pilot]

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.

How funny would it be if they missed?

[KiwiCanuck]

How funny would it be if they missed? ~:-)

A few facts to muddle the stew.

[sabt-pestnu]

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.

Explain the physics in this

[Eudial]

How, pray tell, does one shoot down a sattelite?

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, ... 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?

isn't this obligatory, to a point?

[MrPinstripeCom]

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.

Re:Earth lock

[maxume]

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.

Exactly how do you shoot it down?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Isn't it already in free fall?

Re:Exactly how do you shoot it down?

[funwithBSD]

You give the earth a shove so it is in the way.

Re:Our reasons are better.

[msuarezalvarez]

I am not defending China. I am simply saying that even if you are going to use the term `communist' in a derogatory way like in the message I was responding to (which is debatable), you have at least to make sure that it applies to whatever you are being derogatory about!

Why is the first option always to shoot first?

[meadowsoft]

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.

Here's How It Will Work

[longacre]

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.

Re:Still dangerous without the shot?

[DrWho520]

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). Okay, I will bite. If the fuel tanks survive a missile shot and reentry to pose a threat to those on the ground, would they not just survive reentry sans the missile shot and still pose a threat to those on the ground?

Re:Incompetent

[Sonri]

Rocket boosters they pick up, but only because they are specifically designed to float.

They're also designed to stick up out of the water something like 30 feet, presumably so they can be seen. The people who pick it up then turn it on its side to tow it.

Re:Still dangerous without the shot?

[mangu]

would they not just survive reentry sans the missile shot and still pose a threat to those on the ground?

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.

Don't assume that the sat failed

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

boys trying out their toys

[neonsignal]

Just drop it over Australia; after all, only criminals live here eh?

We'll stick it in a museum with the bits of Skylab.

Re:OOPS!

[Jafafa Hots]

Nope. I mean, I could have learned that there are pathetic losers who use any excuse to pigfight with strangers on the net - and who do so anonymously because they are even so stupid as to think that a name on the net, like "Jafafa Hots," for example, is something of worth that they have to hide so as not to somehow have that non-entity be embarrassed.

But I already knew that.

I, on the other hand, will pigfight openly, and make stupid comments as I please for my own entertainment without a care, because I realize its just the fucking internet.

Have a nice day.

It is just a dummy

[hackingbear]

I found it hard to believe a billion-dollar NRO satellite would be totally dead a few hours after it reached the orbit -- it would be more believable if the satellite failed to reach orbit or it failed after sometimes of operations.

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.

the boys who brought us Katrina and Gitmo

[victorvodka]

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.

SPCSS objects to this!

[Chicken_Kickers]

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.

The story requires this...

[fireman sam]

In Soviet Russia, Satellites shoot you. (Or is that Soviet America?)

Hmmmmm.....

[IHC Navistar]

Maybe Scientology will ask if Xenu's Galactic Confederacy can shoot it down with their DC-9's.....

This reminds me...

[phamilto]

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.

Re:God damn, you just get dumber and dumber

[Jafafa Hots]

That's it? Come on now, you can do better than that. I'll give you a do-over.

Land Shuttle Atlantis through LEO debris?

[An dochasac]

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.

• Mightn't the energy required to break something this big into mostly harmless pieces also send some shrapnel into a higher orbit which could endanger shuttle launches and landings for quit a while?
• Will Atlantis be safely on the ground before LEO is polluted with the debris of this experiment for an indeterminate period of time?
• If it falls outside the U.S. are they going to send the antisat missile into someone else's airspace?
• China, France, India, Pakistan, the shrapnel of the old U.S.S.R. all still have nuclear missile, mightn't antisats flying through/near their airspace make them a bit edgy?
• Didn't we sign some SALT or similar treaties against using weapons in space? If we decide to ignore this treaty, won't it be open season for satellites and space stations?
• If a piece of an uncontrolled satellite causes harm, we could say "sorry, it was an accident, nothing could be done." But if we intentionally break it up and a fragment causes harm, aren't we more liable?

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.

Re:Land Shuttle Atlantis through LEO debris?

[Anonymous Coward]

* Mightn't the energy required to break something this big into mostly harmless pieces also send some shrapnel into a higher orbit which could endanger shuttle launches and landings for quit a while?

No. No matter how much energy you put into any of the pieces through this imapact, their resulting orbits will pass through the point of impact on subsequent orbits (discounting hyperbolic orbits, which won't happen, and wouldn't come back if it did). This point is so low (by definition) that these pieces will also be subject to the same significant drag that is bringing the satellite down. They will decay quickly.

* Will Atlantis be safely on the ground before LEO is polluted with the debris of this experiment for an indeterminate period of time?

Atlantis is scheduled to return on Feb 20th - well before this attempt would be made according to what I've heard. I work in this community, though not on this event - I'm absolutely sure they are taking this into consideration.

* If it falls outside the U.S. are they going to send the antisat missile into someone else's airspace?
        * China, France, India, Pakistan, the shrapnel of the old U.S.S.R. all still have nuclear missile, mightn't antisats flying through/near their airspace make them a bit edgy?

Ok, give them a little credit here. It's really not the first time we've launched missiles into space.

* Didn't we sign some SALT or similar treaties against using weapons in space? If we decide to ignore this treaty, won't it be open season for satellites and space stations?

There is no ASAT treaty. The closest thing to one is the 1972 ABM treaty - which Reagan basically gutted with SDI anyway.

* If a piece of an uncontrolled satellite causes harm, we could say "sorry, it was an accident, nothing could be done." But if we intentionally break it up and a fragment causes harm, aren't we more liable?

That whole area if international law is still wide open. But I'd prefer to have smaller bits coming down then larger ones personally.

Man, not reading the article makes you look stupid

[geekoid]

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.

Now they're just making the satellite mad...

[rwa2]

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...

Or even worse, maybe someone successfully hacked the satellite and /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

Anyway, enough quack theories from me...

What!? Americans doing work?

[rholland356]

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

Re:Still dangerous without the shot?

[DrWho520]

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?

Re:Incompetent

[Trogre]

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?

Re:Still dangerous without the shot?

[compro01]

then they can track it well enough to protect/recover the classified material. Assuming it comes down somewhere that they can get at. All the accurate tracking in the world won't help much if it comes down in Iran, North Korea, China, or any other country that would be interested in said material.

Just a year old

[imp3]

Sooo... They launched this thing a year ago. It failed to work on deployment. Must have had a "Vista Capable" badge.

self destruct ?

[gpatrick900]

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.

We don't do that kind of thing here.

[rabiddeity]

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?

Re:God damn, you just get dumber and dumber

[Jafafa Hots]

"And please don't pretend I'm not destroying your idiot ass."

I wouldn't pretend. I'm willing to concede that in the given context (one anonymous person on the net versus another anonymous person on the net in a contest of inane banter that nobody will ever read) you have won the prize.

Thing is, as I've said, I post shit on the net without thinking, deliberately being a dumbass, as an idle way of passing time. I'm posting this after playing some stupid games on facebook. I have time to kill as I'm disabled with no life to speak of. None of this matters to me. Its a time killer. :)

I actually find it interesting that it matters to YOU. I mean, after all, all I have to do to see your responses is check my own slashdot profile like I routinely do for comments... whereas you, being "anonymous coward," have to actually keep coming back to this article and search out the comments thread to respond. For me its like checking email. For you it takes effort.

It must be pretty important to you. And "winning" must be pretty important to you for you to trumpet it like that. Congrats - you're winning an argument on the internet with a disabled insomniac mental patient. Hey, here's an idea - print out this comments thread and maybe your mom will post it on her fridge! :)

Debris may not be a problem

[XNormal]

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.

Re:Still dangerous without the shot?

[multi io]

Yes, they would. People on the ground will always be at some danger when you put an 11-ton satellite in low earth orbit.

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.

Re:China's debris to remain for thousands of years

[jimmydevice]

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.

Sheesh... not a single comment about lasers...

[Panaflex]

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.

Re:God damn, you just get dumber and dumber

[gpuk]

Nicely done!

Re:OOPS!

[Lumpy]

because I realize its just the fucking internet.

You need to be over on booble.com or pornotube.com for that internet. Common mistake.

Next time build it with a magnesium shell...

[knarf]

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...

Re:China's debris to remain for thousands of years

[garwain]

>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"

Bad Problem, Bad Fix

[DynaSoar]

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.

45% of space shuttle Columbia survived

[peter303]

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.

yes, couldnt active self-destruct sequence

[peter303]

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.

Re:Shuttle anyone...

[mfrank]

They aren't "chasing it down" for two reasons:

1) It would take way more fuel than they have. It costs $10,000 a pound to put something into space, you think they have enough fuel for a major change in orbits? If it's a spy satellite, it's probably in a polar orbit. If that's the case, it would take almost as much change in velocity to match orbits as it would to get *into* orbit.

2) What are they going to do if they "chase it down"? Gray tape an 11000 pound satellite down good enough to handle a couple gees during reentry?

The thing was launched less than two years ago. It would take longer than that to plan a shuttle based recovery mission and build a cradle, and even if it did it'd be cheaper to run the risk and just pay off anyone who gets killed.

Re:God damn, you just get dumber and dumber

[Jafafa Hots]

Nope, I'm not taking the high road. I posted right away a joke mocking myself for being wrong, before you ever even joined the thread. I outed MYSELF as having been a dumbass. And several other people did alos, in informative interesting posts. And then you came along, posting a comment that was redundant and added nothing but to let you anonymously vent rage and anger. Which is cool with me. As I said, this is entertainment for me. I check slashdot several times a day for entertainment. I check my comments page. I reply to comments on there. All for fun. As I'm doing now. Occasionally someone comes along to pigfight woutout adding something of substance. In those cases I respond to each of their comments, for fun. And to see how long they can keep it going. as I'm doing now. I haven't ever left a tab open to continue commenting for several hours or days. Mostly because I never post anonymously and the only comments threads I ever end up tin that are this long is when someone such as yourself comments on one of MY comments. Also because I have never felt the need to make a first comment adding nothing but vitriol for another commenter. But mostly because that would be pretty fucking pathetic. Leaving a tab open to continue an anonymous rant? Kinda fucked up. Me, I just check my profile page. Anyway, there are too many anonymous angry trolls on slashdot to go searching them out. If they come to me, fine. I don't mind, though, as I've said, gives me something to do. I understand some people are so full of rage they need to use the net to scream at strangers. Its strange, but I'm used to it. Ever hear of fuckedcompany.com? They had message boards I used to hang out on, and the fighting there used made anything on slashdot look like kindergarten. Feuds went on for literally years, people tracking down personal info and posting it, harrassing phone calls, photoshopped personal photos, calls to employers, death threats, lawsuits, etc. This is like a tiny touch of the good old days there. Nostalgic. I will be checking my profile page regularly, and am happy to keep this going as long as you like. Nothing about saving face, nobody is looking but you and I, and you can hardly expect me to be at all concerned about your opinion of me. As a little fodder to see how long I can keep you keeping your special tab open, I'm gonna try and guess a few things about you. As I said, you have a lot of anger, you need to vent at strangers. I'll guess that you're a Republican, or at least a conservative. Possibly you call yourself a libertarian. You're likely a misogynist, even if you don't consider yourself one. You almost certainly have to be, because you feel victimized, and with that comes anger and scapegoating. Probably unsuccessful in relationships, and of course its women's fault. Goes without saying you're male. A white male, or slightly possibly west Asian, but not African. You have a small cock. And you would drive a Hummer if you could afford one. How close am I? I await your response. your friend, jafafa.

Re:Brilliant! +6 insightful

[einhverfr]

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.

Re:your sig

[DirkGently]

I got the base wit of his post--that wasn't my point. It was his use of the word "converse".

Re:your sig

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Ah. That just means that you're not necessarliy smarter than them. :P

US to shoot down dying satellite

[Yug_Zohoth]

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.

Re:your sig

[DirkGently]

No, it means that I know what "converse" means and he doesn't. And that you must not, either.

Re:your sig

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"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.