Article

2007-01-19 China-Japan-Koreas

China downs orbiting satellite with missile

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Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-19 01:16|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Since the mid-1980s, the United States has had the ability to take down satellites, but the Chinese don't have satellites worth attacking, Pike said. The United States may have to develop alternatives to its current spy satellites - perhaps stealthy satellites or unmanned aerial vehicles, which are harder to detect than the current well-established U.S. satellite network.

Or we are just crossing our fingers and hoping such alternatives exist. More important than even the Keyhole-type surveillance birds, however, is the entire communications and GPS infrastructure without which a networked military is only a hi-tech Tonka Toy collection. If the ChiComs can threaten those satellites, and it seems they can, we have a problem on par with the negation of all big-gun battleship navies by air power.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-01-19 09:18|| 2007-01-19 09:18|| Front Page Top

#2 Redundancy needed

Posted by Spomort Greling4204 2007-01-19 10:30|| 2007-01-19 10:30|| Front Page Top

#3 Fitting a modified rail gun to satellites would be an option no ? Or have I not understood the basics of this very usable technology ?

Posted by MacNails 2007-01-19 10:37|| 2007-01-19 10:37|| Front Page Top

#4 Fitting a satellite with a railgun still does not solve the problem of reactive force. Remember, for every action there is an equl and opposite reaction. So, if you toss a 3 kg mass at some ungodly speed you get a reaction against the firing vehicle in the opposite direction.

F=ma works in both directions.

Now, the F generated against the launcher vehicle isn't as catastrophic as the F generated by the impacting slug, but it's still acting against the launcher in the opposite direction.

Posted by FOTSGreg">FOTSGreg 2007-01-19 10:56|| www.fire-on-the-suns.com]">[www.fire-on-the-suns.com] 2007-01-19 10:56|| Front Page Top

#5 Just fit two railguns on opposite sides of the satellite and fire them simulaneously to cancel-out the reactive force on the satellite. It's a waste of a round and the energy required to fire it, but it would solve the problem nicely.

Posted by Sherenter Ebbatle2737 2007-01-19 11:35|| 2007-01-19 11:35|| Front Page Top

#6 Yet another Clinton escapade come home to bite us in the ass. Loral sold the Chinese missle technology in the 90's. Loral was a huge Clinton contributor...you do the math..

Posted by Warthog 2007-01-19 11:39|| 2007-01-19 11:39|| Front Page Top

#7 Think about this....

1984 - George Orwell predicted there would be three countries left :

Oceania, East Asia, and Eurasia

2084-
3 countries left
Oceania (Wetern Hemisphere) - Language : Spanish East Asia (China , SE Asia, Australia) - Language : Chinese
Eurasia (Except East Asia- above, but Incl Africa) - Language : Arabic

Chilling.....

Posted by BigEd 2007-01-19 13:03|| 2007-01-19 13:03|| Front Page Top

#8 Think about this....

1984 - George Orwell predicted there would be three countries left :

Oceania, East Asia, and Eurasia

2084-
3 countries left
Oceania (Wetern Hemisphere) - Language : Spanish

East Asia (China , SE Asia, Australia) - Language : Chinese

Eurasia (Except East Asia- above, but Incl Africa) - Language : Arabic

Chilling.....

Posted by BigEd 2007-01-19 13:04|| 2007-01-19 13:04|| Front Page Top

#9 I think the only limit for surface based rail guns is the amount of electricity needed to fire them. No theoretical reason they couldn't be used to put projectiles into orbit from earth (or bombard the other side of the world in a most economical manner).
The other consideration is all the debris left over after a satellite is destroyed, making the orbital paths like a gigantic pinball machine.
Interesting how the MSM has had so little to say about this up until now. More important things to put on the front page, I guess.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-19 13:16|| 2007-01-19 13:16|| Front Page Top

#10 A satellite having active defense sounds pretty expensive. What about putting up several defensive satellite (laser I would assume) that each cover an area?

Or better yet, why don't we get our crap together and put the brakes on Chinas' economy?

Posted by Mike N. 2007-01-19 14:08|| 2007-01-19 14:08|| Front Page Top

#11 Re: Comments #1 & 2: Despite all the blather about the Aurora and the TR-3 and all, I wuold bet that there is indeed an air-breathing vehicle for recon that provides the redundancy in the event of a satellite loss. It has been published in the general press that in addition to Dreamland, there is a new Dreamland being built in Colorado. first question is why? Second question is: why has the gov't within the last few years, greatly expanded the boudaries of the Tohonopah Dreamland? I am not a koolaid swilling UFO-nut, but we did not retire the SR-71s due to 'budget.' There is something better out there. Bet on it.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2007-01-19 15:02|| 2007-01-19 15:02|| Front Page Top

#12 USN Ret: It has been published in the general press that in addition to Dreamland, there is a new Dreamland being built in Colorado.

Dulce? Supposedly the location of a huge underground facility.

first question is why?

Likely because Area 51 and S-1 are known locations by almost everyone.

Second question is: why has the gov't within the last few years, greatly expanded the boudaries of the Tohonopah Dreamland?

Likely because a lot of the UFOnuts and almost certainly "others" (ie spies) were setting up cameras to observe from the slopes of nearby hills and ridgelines. They were operating stealth and a lot of other secret stuff out of Area 51 and S-1 at the time as I recall.

I am not a koolaid swilling UFO-nut, but we did not retire the SR-71s due to 'budget.' There is something better out there. Bet on it.

Of course. You don't retire perfectly good aircraft until you have a decent replacement.

Posted by FOTSGreg">FOTSGreg 2007-01-19 15:13|| www.fire-on-the-suns.com]">[www.fire-on-the-suns.com] 2007-01-19 15:13|| Front Page Top

#13 What about the ZIRCONIC / NEBULA, technology of stealthy satellites?

Globalsecurity

Posted by SwissTex 2007-01-19 15:43|| 2007-01-19 15:43|| Front Page Top

#14 This is a blatant act of war. I wonder how the Democrats will react to it. At the least, all trade with China should be stopped, cold. We should also mine their ports and harbors and destroy their submarine fleet, but that's more than the donkeys can stand. Personally, I think we should take China to the United Nations and force resolution after resolution in that body, until the Chinese get dizzy from trying to veto them all (actually, I think the best option would be to nuke Beijing and a few areas southwest of Xian, but I know that will never happen. I'm sure the Japanese just started up their nuke weapons assembly lines, though).

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2007-01-19 16:58|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2007-01-19 16:58|| Front Page Top

#15 uh, OP, they knocked down one of their OWN sats. How is that an act of war?

Posted by liberalhawk 2007-01-19 17:13|| 2007-01-19 17:13|| Front Page Top

#16 FOTSG: Thanks.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2007-01-19 18:03|| 2007-01-19 18:03|| Front Page Top

#17 Yep, cool down a tad OP, it one of theirs they shot down. Still it is kinda irksome, where was the launch site?

Posted by Shipman 2007-01-19 18:04|| 2007-01-19 18:04|| Front Page Top

#18 Plus, they had the orbit completely mapped out, it was an old Chinese satellite, and it was in a Low Earth Orbit {500 miles} - not Geosynchronous {22,500 miles}. Meaning, they can shootdown the International Space Station, but not any of our Keyholes.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2007-01-19 18:09|| 2007-01-19 18:09|| Front Page Top

#19 Geez guys.

We lose spacecraft to styrofoam hitting it. How hard can it be just to load baseballs into a sattelite and have them fire down into the gravity well.

Or better yet, BB's. You don't need to stop the rocket, just dent the shell and let friction do its job.

Posted by flash91 2007-01-19 19:20|| 2007-01-19 19:20|| Front Page Top

#20 Actually, a gas pressure system involving nothing more than used/rejected wheel ball bearings and a sand-type reaction mass would be feasible as a satellite defense system. Hollow tube that is open on both ends, excepting for the protective membrane,light gas cannister propellant to expel the ball bearings out one side and the crystal counter mass out the other side. Could make the counter mass out of some chemical that completely vaporizes in low G, near-vacuum conditions to avoid debris field creation. The ejected ball bearings would spread out like shotgun pellets and would be traveling at the same speed as the satellite plus say 250 feet per second more from the ejection. Mass times speed impacts are nasty things.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2007-01-19 19:48|| 2007-01-19 19:48|| Front Page Top

#21 Shield,

Unless I'm mistaken visual spy sats like the KH series are in low Earth orbit - not Geo-sync.

Posted by jds 2007-01-19 22:41|| 2007-01-19 22:41|| Front Page Top

#22 Milstars are geo-synch, KH are in a modified LEO, and GPS is at 12,600 miles. So KHs may be vulnerable, but Milstar and GPS are not. But even then, there is the fact of the launch of what can appear to be a ICBM if the track is not directly over China. And the fact that Aegis can use Standard Mark 3 to intercept such a launch. Besides, going to blind the US KH network would be a declaration of war - same as trying to sink a carrier with a sub or cruise missile.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2007-01-19 22:59|| 2007-01-19 22:59|| Front Page Top

#23 And for the Chinese to be truly safe once they started in on the KHs, they would have to knockdown the Hubble, the ISS, and any Shuttles in orbit. All 3 of those can and have been used for direct Earth observation.
Plus they would have to shutdown Vandenburg AFB to prevent replacement launches.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2007-01-19 23:03|| 2007-01-19 23:03|| Front Page Top

08:09 The Don
08:06 The Don
08:04 The Don
08:02 The Don
23:55 Barbara Skolaut
23:52 Swamp Blondie
23:50 Barbara Skolaut
23:45 JosephMendiola
23:41 Charles de Gaulle
23:31 JosephMendiola
23:31 USN, ret.
23:26 USN, ret.
23:21 JosephMendiola
23:11 JosephMendiola
23:07 JosephMendiola
23:03 Shieldwolf
23:02 JosephMendiola
23:00 Thinemp Whimble2412
22:59 Shieldwolf
22:59 Mike N.
22:51 USN, ret.
22:46 JosephMendiola
22:41 jds
22:35 JosephMendiola