Article

2008-02-20 Home Front: WoT

US declares 1400-mile Pacific sat-shoot exclusion zone

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Posted by Steve White 2008-02-20 00:00|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 Whatever falls into the ocean can be handled by the sharks with fricking lasers on their heads.

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839">AlmostAnonymous5839 2008-02-20 00:19|| 2008-02-20 00:19|| Front Page Top

#2 When will they learn a NOTAM attracts aircraft. We had on pilot do figure 8's over our launch pads at about 300 feet. When you have a full rack ready it's really tempting to have an oops.

Posted by bruce 2008-02-20 07:58|| 2008-02-20 07:58|| Front Page Top

#3 I had planned to fly over the area looking for sharks, but I will pass on that now.

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2008-02-20 08:19|| 2008-02-20 08:19|| Front Page Top

#4 Is Berkeley in it?
Maybe they'll miss...

Posted by tu3031 2008-02-20 09:23|| 2008-02-20 09:23|| Front Page Top

#5 Weather may delay shootdown of satellite

WASHINGTON - High seas in the north Pacific may force the Navy to wait another day before launching a heat-seeking missile on a mission to shoot down a wayward U.S. spy satellite, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The officer said the assumption had been that the mission would go forward Wednesday night, unless conditions are determined to be unfavorable. Earlier in the day, bad weather in the north Pacific was causing rough seas, which may be a problem for the USS Lake Erie, a cruiser armed with two SM-3 missiles.

"We don't anticipate the weather being good enough today," the officer said, adding that conditions could improve enough in the hours ahead to permit it to go forward. A final decision would be made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Alluding to the high seas and strong winds, the officer added, "It has not been enough for us to say `no'" and put the launch mission off until Thursday. But it would take improved conditions to proceed.

The Pentagon had been waiting until the space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth before launching the missile.

"We're now into the window," the senior military officer said minutes after the shuttle landed at 9:07 a.m. EST.

He said the mission could go forward on any day until Feb. 29, when the satellite is projected to have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, making it infeasible to attempt to hit it with the Navy missile.

Officers have hours in which to monitor a long checklist of technical factors and conditions before deciding whether to proceed with the missile launch. But the period in which the missile must launch in order to have an optimum chance of success against the satellite is only "a matter of seconds," the senior military officer said.

The attempted shootdown was approved by President Bush last week out of concern that toxic fuel on board the satellite could crash to earth and potentially harm humans, the Defense Department has said.

Officials will know within minutes of the SM-3 missile launch whether the missile has hit the satellite, but it will take a day or two to know whether the fuel tank has been destroyed, officials said.

The military has readied a three-stage Navy missile, designated the SM-3, which has chalked up a high rate of success in a series of missile defense tests since 2002. In each case it targeted a short- or medium-range ballistic missile, never a satellite. A hurry-up program to adapt the missile for this anti-satellite mission was completed in a matter of weeks; Navy officials say the changes will be reversed once this satellite is down.

Adding to the difficulty of the shootdown mission, the missile will have to do better than just hit the bus-sized satellite, a Navy official said Tuesday. It needs to strike the relatively small fuel tank aboard the spacecraft in order to accomplish the main goal, which is to eliminate the toxic fuel that could injure or even kill people if it reached Earth. The Navy official described technical aspects of the missile's capabilities on condition that he not be identified.

Also complicating the effort will be the fact that the satellite has no heat-generating propulsion system on board. That makes it more difficult for the Navy missile's heat-seeking system to work, although the official said software changes had been made to compensate for the lack of heat.

Posted by tu3031 2008-02-20 12:07|| 2008-02-20 12:07|| Front Page Top

#6 Tu,
"Also complicating the effort will be the fact that the satellite has no heat-generating propulsion system on board. "

Won't the heat generated by the friction of reentry give enough of a thermal image?

Posted by AlanC 2008-02-20 13:04|| 2008-02-20 13:04|| Front Page Top

#7 The main thing that concerns me about this so called soot down is just how much the debris will spread around the object's orbit before it all re-enters. The reason I say so called shoot down is most of the object will stay in orbit until the orbit decays enough that the debris re-enters. Some of the idiots out there in the MSM* seem to think that once the missile hits it the object will simply fall to Earth.

*But then we are talking about the MSM

Posted by Cheadderhead 2008-02-20 13:48|| 2008-02-20 13:48|| Front Page Top

#8 The Navy announced the shootdown is gonna occur around 240km up (roughly 50-60%) beyond the officially listed figures of the SM-3, the US tends to be conservative in its range figures on many of its weapons. The other thing is this is still in LEO effectively which puts it at roughly 40-90km before atmospheric friction really heats things up.

Posted by Valentine 2008-02-20 13:54|| 2008-02-20 13:54|| Front Page Top

#9 The main thing that concerns me about this so called soot down is just how much the debris will spread around the object's orbit before it all re-enters. The reason I say so called shoot down is most of the object will stay in orbit until the orbit decays enough that the debris re-enters. Some of the idiots out there in the MSM* seem to think that once the missile hits it the object will simply fall to Earth.

In this case they're actually right. The object is in a rapidly decaying downward orbit path (even if you break it up the pieces are still gonna continue along that path). The sat the chinese hit last time was about about 860km up and in STABLE orbit. Which meant thanks to the idiot who launched the missile he just spread debris around that would just interfere with everyone else for a long time. Bad math doesn't even begin to describe the idiocy involved in that decision.

Posted by Valentine 2008-02-20 13:57|| 2008-02-20 13:57|| Front Page Top

#10 Won't the heat generated by the friction of reentry give enough of a thermal image?

It's a mixed bag. If they wait for that effect to take hold they risk the possibility of it breaking up over populated areas, including a potential impact of the toxic fuel on board.

Posted by lotp 2008-02-20 14:17|| 2008-02-20 14:17|| Front Page Top

#11 The Pentagon had been waiting until the space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth before launching the missile.

(Firing Officer) NO DAMMIT, NOT THAT BLIP, followed by OH SHIT.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2008-02-20 14:27|| 2008-02-20 14:27|| Front Page Top

#12 The heat retained from the daylight side will silhouette it against cold space. By doing it at night it also minimizes the IR detectors from locking onto any glint off the solar array and hitting that instead of the main spacecraft body.

I guess even a glancing collision at 10,000 mph is going to vaporize a large part of the spacecraft so I doubt the fuel tanks will survive.

Posted by ed 2008-02-20 14:34|| 2008-02-20 14:34|| Front Page Top

#13 It is my understanding that the payload was pretty much stillborn after launch and the solar panels never deployed. In fact, it was pretty much like launching a rock to orbit. It was dead on arrival.

Posted by crosspatch 2008-02-20 15:15|| 2008-02-20 15:15|| Front Page Top

#14
Missile Defense Globally Protects Against Toxic Satellite
(spacewar.com)
Riki Ellison, President of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, (MDAA) www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org went on record in an Alert to the MDAA membership here and globally in an definitive analysis and explanation of the significance of the importance of the missile defense's program capability of the Aegis and the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) planned use against a NRO falling satellite. His commentary is as follows:

"The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Cartwright, announced that the Aegis Sea-Based Missile Defense system will be used to intercept a falling U.S. satellite containing toxic rocket fuel in order to reduce the risk of harm to human life as well as to manmade platforms in space, in the air and on earth."

"The capability, the adaptability, the investment and the proven technology of our country's missile defense systems has given our nation and our military an option which it never had before to protect human life globally from falling objects from space."

"The current threat of a 5,000 pound National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite carrying over 1,000 pounds of Hydrazine gas tumbling down through the atmosphere could be negated by the use of any of the current missile defense systems. All of the deployed missile defense systems, with the exception of Patriot, have successfully intercepted fast moving small objects in space."

"Since the United States' decision to deploy missile defense in December of 2002, there have been 16 successful intercepts in space by three different missile defense systems."

"The deployed U.S. Aegis ships, equipped with missile defense capability, offer self contained tracking and discrimination and hold numerous Standard Missile-3s in their berths for multiple shots if required to add redundancy and further reduce the risk. This sea-based system has repeated successes destroying very fast warheads around six feet long and between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds in space. The most recent successes were by the Japanese Aegis Ship Kongo on December 17, 2007 and the United States Aegis cruiser Lake Erie (CG 70) on November 6, 2007."

"In addition to reducing risk to human life globally, the potential kinetic energy intercept of a tumbling, uncontrolled NRO satellite by the Aegis ship's Standard Missile-3 provides a real use military operational case that, in addition to reducing risk to human life, can enhance the current operational development of the SM-3 and its Aegis System. A typical Aegis Missile Defense test costs the Department of Defense around $40 million."

Ellison closed his Alert with the following remarks: "We endorse the flexible use of this remarkable capability and clearly see the return on investment of missile defense for the American taxpayer and Congress. Our country's investment and leadership internationally in Missile Defense provides global options that make our world a safer place. We are a safer world with missile defense than without it."

Posted by 3dc 2008-02-20 18:02|| 2008-02-20 18:02|| Front Page Top

#15 Fox Video - John Pike and Riki Ellison discuss the shoot down.

Posted by 3dc 2008-02-20 18:11|| 2008-02-20 18:11|| Front Page Top

#16 Its 1000 Hours here Thursday morn in the Guam AM -NOTHING IN THE LOCAL MEDIAS YET OR ON THE NET ABOUT WHETHER THE SHOOTDOWN OCCURRED OR WAS ON SCHEDULE, ETC.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-02-20 18:37|| 2008-02-20 18:37|| Front Page Top

#17 The shot will be pointing toward the night terminator, but the sat will be well above the horizon 243km, and thus well lit against a dark background. Kauai is the home of the pacific missile test range, so plenty of cameras, radars and sensors to be applied to that potential intercept box.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-02-20 18:44|| 2008-02-20 18:44|| Front Page Top

#18 0330Z Thu = 1730 Wed Hawaii time. Its this evening.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-02-20 18:47|| 2008-02-20 18:47|| Front Page Top

#19 FWI this will be a VERY tricky shot inthat only reflected radiation (heat) will be present. Its not reentering as of yet, so its a COLD target. 16,000 MPH and altitiude of prox 245Km, the larger area pieces (assuming it hits) should deorbit fairly rapidly if they are given enough downward vector.

If the Hydrazine tank actually is pierced, it could simply leak and spin like mad, or (more likely with a diredt kinetic kill)) rupture like a popped balloon, and possibly ignite, imparting all kinds of thrust vectors to all kinds of chunks of the (former) spy satellite.

Then again, the targeting software may have fits trying to pick out a cold target against a cold background, at the extreme extent of the SM-3's stated range, and simply miss.

I'm betting 50-50 they need to take a couple shots. This is a MUCH harder target than an ICBM warhead in many ways.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-02-20 18:52|| 2008-02-20 18:52|| Front Page Top

#20 FYI closing velocity will be in the neighborhood of 36,000 MPH if they can manage a nearly head on shot.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-02-20 22:07|| 2008-02-20 22:07|| Front Page Top

#21 VARIOUS NEWS > Looks like its NO-GO for another week or so due to inclement weather and lousy seas. OTOH, YAHOO - SATELLITE DEBRIS MAY BE VISIBLE AFTER SHOOTDOWN.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-02-20 22:10|| 2008-02-20 22:10|| Front Page Top

#22 Fox says, "Navy got it!!!"

Posted by Sherry">Sherry 2008-02-20 22:41|| 2008-02-20 22:41|| Front Page Top

#23 If accurate, BZ Navy!

Posted by OldSpook 2008-02-20 22:53|| 2008-02-20 22:53|| Front Page Top

#24 WASHINGTON â A missile launched from a Navy ship successfully struck a dying U.S. spy satellite passing 130 miles over the Pacific on Wednesday, a defense official said. Full details were not immediately available.

It happened just after 10:30 p.m. EST.

Two officials said the missile was launched successfully. One official, who is close to the process, said it hit the target. He said details on the results were not immediately known.

The goal in this first-of-its-kind mission for the Navy was not just to hit the satellite but to obliterate a tank aboard the spacecraft carrying 1,000 pounds of a toxic fuel called hydrazine.

U.S. officials have said the fuel would pose a potential health hazard to humans if it landed in a populated area. Although the odds of that were small even if the Pentagon had chosen not to try to shoot down the satellite, it was determined that it was worth trying to eliminate even that small chance.

Officials said it might take a day or longer to know for sure if the toxic fuel was blown up.

Posted by 3dc 2008-02-20 23:08|| 2008-02-20 23:08|| Front Page Top

#25 SS Lake Erie took the shot as planned

Posted by 3dc 2008-02-20 23:12|| 2008-02-20 23:12|| Front Page Top

#26 USS Lake Erie

Posted by 3dc 2008-02-20 23:13|| 2008-02-20 23:13|| Front Page Top

#27 Pretty good link

Posted by 3dc 2008-02-20 23:14|| 2008-02-20 23:14|| Front Page Top

#28 1000lbs of frozen hydrazine. 36,000 MPH impact.

Boggles the mind. (Do the math)

Posted by OldSpook 2008-02-20 23:33|| 2008-02-20 23:33|| Front Page Top

#29 Dang. Didn't get a shot off with the deer rifle.

If it was successful, supposed to be a party at the Pentagon. At least I can load a keg in the pick-up and heading up to DC.

Posted by www 2008-02-20 23:51|| 2008-02-20 23:51|| Front Page Top

23:55 twobyfour
23:52 twobyfour
23:51 www
23:45 twobyfour
23:36 phil_b
23:33 OldSpook
23:21 JohnQC
23:16 JohnQC
23:14 3dc
23:13 3dc
23:12 3dc
23:09 JohnQC
23:08 3dc
23:04 Procopius2k
22:59 Procopius2k
22:53 OldSpook
22:41 Sherry
22:40 JosephMendiola
22:35 JosephMendiola
22:14 Redneck Jim
22:10 JosephMendiola
22:07 OldSpook
22:07 DMFD
21:58 JosephMendiola