USA 193 Shootdown Set For Feb 21, 03:30 UTC

An anonymous reader writes "Amateur satellite watcher Ted Molczan notes that a "Notice to Airmen" (NOTAM) has been issued announcing restricted airspace for February 21, between 02:30 and 05:00 UTC, in a region near Hawaii. Stricken satellite USA 193, which the US has announced plans to shoot down, will pass over this area at about 03:30. Interestingly, this is during the totality of Wednesday's lunar eclipse, which may or may not make debris easier to observe."

Comments

I wonder

[cslax]

if they chose the eclipse date on purpose. We'll wait and see what they say AFTER it all happens.

Re:Good coverage

[Cassius Corodes]

There is also some interesting analysis done by the Federation of American Scientists that suggests this is just an excuse to test out some anti-satellite missiles. An interesting read.

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/02/us_plans_test_of_anti-satellit.php

Re:Good coverage

[v1]

I wonder what they mean by "shoot down"? It's not like an airplane, that if damaged, can't stay flying and falls to earth. If you blow up a big satellite, you end up with a bunch of little satellites, and that doesn't make them de-orbit much faster does it? I was under the understanding that blowing up stuff in space is BAD and creates a major headache more of space debris. I suppose if you really wanted to de-orbit a dead satellite you'd want to shoot a missile at it that would attach, and fire retro rockets to slow it down so it would degrade its orbit enough to hit atmosphere were it would be pulled down on its own from there.

Re:Moon hiding behind megameters of solid rock

[isomeme]

Don't be confused by the expression "shoot down". The satellite is still very high above the Earth. The cloud of debris will continue for many orbits and alternate between daylight and nighttime every 45 minutes, like every other low-orbit satellite.

Yep, but by the time the debris orbits into the Earth's shadow, about 15 minutes after the impact if my guesstimate is right, it will be entirely dark in visible wavelengths, shining only by reflected light. At that point, the lunar eclipse hinders rather than helps things, by removing a light source. And the eclipse moves out of totality within another 15 minutes after that.

Short version: The timing relative to the lunar eclipse is pure coincidence.

Unless it's a critical part of the top secret plan to propitiate Nyarlathotep and force Great Cthulhu back into an uneasy aeons-long slumber among the cyclopean ruins of R'lyeh, the fabled city of the Old Ones, looming over the black abyssal plain that lies miles below the sparkling sunlit waters of the Pacific.

In which case, I don't want to know what's in the payload of that missile.

Re:Good coverage

[XorNand]

Yeah right... The fact that it's a two-year old, highly-classified spy satellite has nothing to do with it. The *real* reason that they're spending $60M is to make sure that some fuel doesn't contaminate an acre or so of land.

Re:Good coverage

[RedWizzard]

Yeah right... The fact that it's a two-year old, highly-classified spy satellite has nothing to do with it. The *real* reason that they're spending $60M is to make sure that some fuel doesn't contaminate an acre or so of land. Nothing useful in terms of spy gear is going to make it through re-entry. What might make it through re-entry is a large, resilient fuel tank containing high-toxic, probably carcinogenic, fuel. Logic dictates that if there was really something classified on the satellite that they didn't want to survive re-entry they simply would have designed it to not survive re-entry or they would have installed a self-destruct. Shooting it down at this point for the reason you're implying doesn't make sense.

Besides, if it's the gear (rather than the fuel) that concerns them then why haven't they bothered shooting down other de-orbiting sats in the past?

Three reasons

[jmichaelg]

I think there are three reasons they're spending $60 M to destroy the satellite. They are

1. They don't want a repeat of Skylab where parts landed in Australia and made us look bad.
2. If it comes down in Russia (Russia spans 11 time zones so that's not too unlikely) they don't want the Russians to be able to figure out much from the debris.
3. They want a chance to test their anti-satellite weaponry on a real target that isn't saying "Over here! I'm over here! Here I am! Yoo Hoo!"

There's actually a 4th reason - blowing stuff up is fun but they would never cop to it.

Re:Good coverage

[icebrain]

But the US missile can launch from essentially any one of several Aegis-equipped cruisers, rather than needing a relatively fixed ballistic missile (like the Chinese system). The US missile is a descendant of the SM-1 Standard SAM developed to protect ships against aircraft and cruise missiles. The SM-3 version (to be used in the test) was developed specifically to intercept ballistic missiles--the only modification for this test is a software upgrade. I think it's already in regular service.