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Call In the Military To Blast Rogue Satellite?
coondoggie submitted a follow-up to the tale of the wandering satellite that might collide with other stuff in orbit. He asks "Will the military need to be called in to blow up the rogue Intelsat satellite meandering through Earth's orbit? Or maybe a NASA Space Shuttle could swing by and grab it? You may recall that in 2008, rather than risk that a large piece of a failing spy satellite would fall on populated areas, the government blasted it out of the sky. The physics of such a shot were complicated and the Navy had a less than 10-second window to hit the satellite as it passed over its ships in the Pacific Ocean. But it worked. Now word comes that a five-year-old Intelsat TV satellite is meandering in orbit and attempts to control it have proven futile. At issue now is that the satellite could smash into other satellites or ramble into other satellite orbits and abscond with their signals."
As was clearly stated the last time we had this exact discussion:
- far too high for the space shuttle
- most assuredly too high for most anti-sat missiles
Stuff does not deorbit like a syfy movie.
I would think the tightly contained 1 big bit of a satellite is much safer than the thousands of little tiny parts in all sorts of orbits you are going to get if you try and destroy the one big bit.
The US doesn't appear to have a system capable of destroying something at that orbit.
Now the first paragraph in the article is just full of ignorance.
"Will the military need to be called in to blow up the rogue Intelsat satellite meandering through Earth's orbit? Or maybe a NASA Space Shuttle could swing by and grab it?"
Again, the military hasn't demonstrated the ability to hit things in that orbit. The Shuttle can't go that high.
The F-15 launched ASM-135 ASAT - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT - could go up to 350 miles.
USA-193 was destroyed at 130 miles
Galaxy 15 is at 22,230 miles
When China does it, the world protests. all the space junk created. However, when the US does it, it's to save other satellites.
The US did it before China and people were very critical:
The official explanation – that the US wanted to prevent the toxic contents of the spacecraft's fuel tank from hitting the ground – seems a bit thin, according to James Lewis, director of the technology and public policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thus critics from around the world have speculated about ulterior motives, ranging from a desire to test US ballistic missile defenses to poking China in the eye.
It's a sort of anti-satellite arms race and status thing between two super power. Or in playground terms, the two assholes are having a dick measuring contest.
My work here is dung.
Well, the two shots were Apples and Oranges.
USA-193 was in a decaying orbit at 130 miles and most of the debris de orbited within a couple weeks. It was hit by a small SM-3 surface to air missile, 21 feet long, 3,000 pounds
FY-1C was in a stable polar orbit at 537 miles and it's destruction increased the amount of space debris by 12%. The missile that hit it was a DF-21, 35 feet long, 30,000 pounds
In case you don't remember, stuff traveling at orbital velocities is positively lethal to spacecraft. The extreme energies involved in these kinds of impacts is enough to send very high velocity fragments in all directions. Sure, some of it will de-orbit, but most will end up in fairly stable orbits that will EVENTUALLY intersect all the other satellites up there. So blowing up one rogue satellite makes one very annoying but eminently predictable problem into a thousand lethal and unpredictable problems.
Last February, a Russian satellite hit a commercial Iridium satellite, and the resulting debris cloud (estimated near 600 pieces in various orbits) has been a HUGE headache for everyone in similar orbital altitudes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123438921888374497.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29147679/
In 2008, the US got criticized around the world for blowing up a falling satellite because of the health threats of hydrazine if it landed in a populated area. Aside from complaints about military showboating, there were many scientists who complained about the resulting orbital debris; however, in reality it was a very low-altitude explosion and the debris cloud did de-orbit very quickly (unlike a geosynchronous orbit explosion, which would leave practically permanent debris due to the orbit well above any appreciable atmospheric drag).
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6712/is_35_237/ai_n29417848/
Read here for some details on the general problems with orbital debris.
http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?id=L376
So no more helpful suggestions like this, please.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
The X-37B, the Space Shuttle, all current anti-satellite missiles, in short all systems that the military currently acknowledges having cannot reach far enough to "destroy" the satellite. Such an outcome is not even desirable as it would turn the satellite into a field of orbiting buckshot that would "mostly" remain in the same orbit. Which is to say some would not and would inevitably impact nearby satellites and possibly create more problems. Likewise, hitting it with a ground based laser, although probably doable, would not be a good idea. As it stands now, the satellite will not come back to Earth, there is no danger of reentry. It will most likely end up at the Lagrange point as has already been stated.
http://xkcd.com/681_large/
In particular, look at the panel of Earth, which is under Uranus and Neptune, lower right.
Geez, XKCD should win the Pulitzer Prize for this graphic. If a picture is worth a KiloWord, this is worth a MegaWord of explanation. This should be required viewing in all 8th Grade science classes.