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."

Comments

Re:When China does it...

[clone53421]

Thanks. I came here to ask whether this didn’t just increase the space debris and your comment pretty well answered my question.

Re:U.S. Air Force to the rescue!

[apoc.famine]

Until it passes in front of stars, planets, or the moon, or the sun reflects off it. 2-3 observations over a few hours is plenty enough to pin down an orbit. Changing orbit takes a fair bit of energy. While I assume this can do it, it can't do it all the time.

Stealth works for airplanes because they can change altitude and direction easily. It's not nearly as useful for stuff in orbit.

Like I said, there's not much to hide behind in space. Unless the X-37 is transparent, it's not going to hide in orbit.