Navy hits wayward satellite on first attempt

[unhappycamper]

Navy hits wayward satellite on first attempt
By Zachary M. Peterson - Staff Writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 20, 2008 23:45:04 EST

The Navy cruiser Lake Erie successfully shot down a malfunctioning spy satellite Wednesday night over the Pacific Ocean.

At 10:26 p.m. EST the Lake Erie fired a Standard Missile-3 at 133 nautical miles over the Pacific Ocean, according to the Pentagon. The SM-3 traveled at approximately 17,000 mph, a Defense Department statement said.

The objective of the shot was to take out the satellite’s fuel tank which contains about 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, a hazardous fuel that could pose a danger to people if it hit land, the DoD release noted.

Confirmation that the fuel tank was hit should be available in 24 hours, according to the Pentagon. The debris from the satellite will begin to re-enter the atmosphere immediately, the Pentagon said.

“Nearly all of the debris will burn up on reentry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days,” the DoD statement said.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/navy_satelliteshootdown_080220/

[MADem]

1. Oh, boy....roll out the new version. They'll be stealing all the good offices at the Pentagon again

[Aviation Pro]

2. Easy to hit a target in low earth orbit....

...harder to hit a target during the bus stage with an unknown trajectory.

[FalconsRule]

6. More correctly...

HARD to hit a target moving at 16,000 MPH in LEO. MUCH HARDER to hit a traget in boost (not bus) phase...

[Aviation Pro]

10. I believe that there are a couple of white papers that advocate..

...missile destruction during the bus phase and not the booster phase. I was trying to make light of the ease of hitting a known target in LEO (of course the math is ridiculous but doable - two bodies, tangent to the curve, bunch of derivatives, 2-minute burn off through the thrust stage of the missile, etc. But that's why we pay engineers).

[FalconsRule]

11. In that case,

I concur. I was just syaing it's still hard to do!

[MADem]

7. Absolutely! They're still probably strutting about it, though...!

It was the first opportunity in awhile to do some of that Cold War junk, and those old bums are probably thrilled about it....!

More on the event, here: http://www.heavens-above.com/usa193.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET

[FalconsRule]

8. "They" should be somewhat

pleased. Whatever the real reason for doing so, actually hitting the target is pretty impressive.

[MADem]

9. GE, We Bring Good Wars To Life!

Of course, the folks at GE and Raytheon etc., like COLD WARS better...less messy.

[Eagle_Eye]

3. The race is on! I expect the defense contractors to rake in a cool trillion $ in the coming years

The race for space weapons will be even bigger than the race for nuclear weapons.

Defense contractors stand to receive ever increasing value in contracts to counter the efforts we will see from China, Russia, and Israel.

If SSBNs, ICBMs, and strategic bombers cost us a lot of bucks, wait until space warfare goes into high gear.

[izzie]

4. As if we are not spending enough right now.

It is a good thing they hit it on the first shot if they really did. That ships Capt. would be working along side of the Subs Capt. that gave Bush's friends their fun ride and hit the Japanese boat and killed all those people.

[izzie]

5. As if we are not spending enough right now.

It is a good thing they hit it on the first shot if they really did. That ships Capt. would be working along side of the Subs Capt. that gave Bush's friends their fun ride and hit the Japanese boat and killed all those people.