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

Too high up and then what to do with the pieces?

[KDN]

The satellite in question is at geosync altitudes, something like 23,000 miles. I think the space shuttle has a maximum orbit at something like 300 miles. And even if you blew it to bits, what do you do about all the pieces that will be floating around for the next hundred years or so? Best option for now is to let it drift out of control until the solar cells no longer can let the machine charge and then it goes dead. Maybe in 10 years when China is the new world superpower they can clean it up.

Well you could always --

[dwiget001]

-- "...nuke the entire [satellite] from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

Apologies to Ripley.