Missile 1, Satellite 0

[Bronco Bob]

Missile Strikes a Spy Satellite Falling From Its Orbit

WASHINGTON — A missile interceptor launched from a Navy warship has struck a dying American spy satellite orbiting 130 miles over the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon announced late Wednesday.

Officials cautioned that while early information indicated that the interceptor’s “kill vehicle” had hit the satellite, it would be 24 hours before it could be determined whether the fuel tank with 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine had been destroyed as planned.

Even so, one official who received a late-night briefing on the mission expressed confidence that the impact had been so powerful that the fuel tank probably had been ruptured.

Completing a mission in which an interceptor designed for missile defense was used for the first time to attack a satellite, the Lake Erie, an Aegis-class cruiser, fired a single missile just before 10:30 p.m. Eastern time, and the missile hit the satellite as it traveled at more than 17,000 miles per hour, the Pentagon said in its official announcement.

“A network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a nonfunctioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” the statement said.

By early Wednesday, three Navy warships were in position in the Pacific Ocean to launch the interceptors and to track the mission.

Radar and other tracking equipment, both in space and on the ground, were monitored at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, and at a space command headquarters in Colorado Springs, with control of the operation managed by the Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb.

Although the satellite circles the globe every 90 minutes, analysts pinpointed a single overhead pass each day that would offer the best chance of striking the satellite and then having half of the debris fall into the atmosphere in the next three orbits over water or less-populated areas of the Earth.

More at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us...ellite.html?hp

[Spider]

Huh ......I dont buy the story that it is dangerous , but I wonder why they didnt use a war head to hit the sat ?

[spdirty]

cool...wish there was a way we could see it.

[Bronco Bob]

Originally Posted by Spider

Huh ......I dont buy the story that it is dangerous , but I wonder why they didnt use a war head to hit the sat ?

I suspect there was also a lot of top secret equipment on the satellite
that they would just as soon not land intact. For example knowing the
size of the mirrors in the camera gives a good idea of its resolution.
Didn't really need explosives, the satellite is traveling at 17,000 mph,
the kinetic energy of that alone is more than sufficient. Think of
a truck full of gasoline going down a hill at 100 mph and it hits a boulder.
Would a few sticks of dynamite strapped to the boulder really add that
much to the collision?

[cutthemdown]

I think this was a conveniant excuse for a test. I imagine no explosives where used to minimize how many pieces it broke into. This way I read it was hoped it was put into several large pieces which could then still fall to earth and mostly burn up. Who knows that all could BS and it was just a test. I know they don't want tons of small debris in space though.

Funny how some people made a big deal over this. Good news proving we could do this from a warship shows good ability.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

I think this was a conveniant excuse for a test. I imagine no explosives where used to minimize how many pieces it broke into. This way I read it was hoped it was put into several large pieces which could then still fall to earth and mostly burn up. Who knows that all could BS and it was just a test. I know they don't want tons of small debris in space though.

Funny how some people made a big deal over this. Good news proving we could do this from a warship shows good ability.

This has nothing to do with shooting down ICBMs with ICBMs.

[snowspot66]

Originally Posted by Spider

Huh ......I dont buy the story that it is dangerous , but I wonder why they didnt use a war head to hit the sat ?

If I remember right the Chinese did use a warhead a few years ago when they took one out. It's now orbiting Earth in thousands of pieces hundreds of which are 4 inches or larger.

Now imagine trying to put a new satellite into orbit knowing a ton of **** is flying at thousands of miles per hour around and around for who knows how long. Chinese pissed of a lot of people that day and it wasn't just because it seemed like a military threat. Every time we send something or someone up it's at risk from this stuff.

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by Bronco_Beerslug

This has nothing to do with shooting down ICBMs with ICBMs.

Who said anything about an ICBM? All it proved was that the navy can shoot down a low orbiting space craft with a type-3 standard missile launched from a warship. I just said I thought that showed some good capability.

[Spider]

Originally Posted by snowspot66

If I remember right the Chinese did use a warhead a few years ago when they took one out. It's now orbiting Earth in thousands of pieces hundreds of which are 4 inches or larger.

Now imagine trying to put a new satellite into orbit knowing a ton of **** is flying at thousands of miles per hour around and around for who knows how long. Chinese pissed of a lot of people that day and it wasn't just because it seemed like a military threat. Every time we send something or someone up it's at risk from this stuff.

Yeah , forget little particles of rock , Ice chunks .there is so much space junk now up there it isnt funny , now all of the sudden it is a worry ....... this is why the right gets a bad rep .......Lets forget all of the debris up there now , just focus on this sat .... Chinese blow one up , everyone biches about the debris , so we go out and destroy one , but ours is better cause the debris is bigger ? we can only track debris the size of a baseball .... no telling for sure how many nuts and bolts are flying around up there ..... hell there is a old satellite Still floating around up there from the late 50's , not to mention all of the satellites up there now for Cable , Dish tv's cell phones ......

[Crushaholic]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

Who said anything about an ICBM? All it proved was that the navy can shoot down a low orbiting space craft with a type-3 standard missile launched from a warship. I just said I thought that showed some good capability.

Yep. This was target practice...

[Hotrod]

Impressive really.

Now if we could just figure out how to catch/kill an old man wearing a diaper on his head living in a cave.

[Bronco Bob]

Originally Posted by Spider

Yeah , forget little particles of rock , Ice chunks .there is so much space junk now up there it isnt funny , now all of the sudden it is a worry ....... this is why the right gets a bad rep .......Lets forget all of the debris up there now , just focus on this sat .... Chinese blow one up , everyone biches about the debris , so we go out and destroy one , but ours is better cause the debris is bigger ? we can only track debris the size of a baseball .... no telling for sure how many nuts and bolts are flying around up there ..... hell there is a old satellite Still floating around up there from the late 50's , not to mention all of the satellites up there now for Cable , Dish tv's cell phones ......

Well the problem with the Chinese blowing up their satellite is that their
satellite is in a higher orbit. Our satellite is in a low orbit so everything
from it should fall to earth within about 40 days. Where-as the pieces from
the Chinese satellite will be up there for centuries. The higher an object is,
the less air resistance it encounters because the air gets thinner the
higher up you go. So the longer it takes for air resistance to slow down
an object enough for it to fall back to earth.
As far as debris size, they said on the news this morning that telemetry
showed that no piece left of our satellite is larger than a football,
so they definitely hit the fuel tank, and most should burn up on the
way down so it's not likely anything is going to hit anybody on the ground.

[ElwayMD]

It's amazing how much missle technology has advanced in the past 50 years. Now we just need them to shoot down the satellite that has CMT on it and I'll be a happier man.

[Spider]

Originally Posted by Bronco Bob

Well the problem with the Chinese blowing up their satellite is that their
satellite is in a higher orbit. Our satellite is in a low orbit so everything
from it should fall to earth within about 40 days. Where-as the pieces from
the Chinese satellite will be up there for centuries. The higher an object is,
the less air resistance it encounters because the air gets thinner the
higher up you go. So the longer it takes for air resistance to slow down
an object enough for it to fall back to earth.
As far as debris size, they said on the news this morning that telemetry
showed that no piece left of our satellite is larger than a football,
so they definitely hit the fuel tank, and most should burn up on the
way down so it's not likely anything is going to hit anybody on the ground.

, I understand high orbit vs low Orbit , and decaying orbit , but you cant , no one can gaurentee all of the satellite will come to earth ..... But My point still stands , space junk has been present since the 60's and 70's , not including the stuff that is natural ... So all of the sudden it is a problem ......

[Spider]

I never once expressed concern about debris falling on people , But the Atmosphere would exlain shuttles burning up on reentry .... Gee next thing you know mental wizzards will be telling me that the moon isnt made of cheese .....

[TDmvp]

... told you this was cake .... and spider you dont need a warhead .... just mass at high speed ...

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

Who said anything about an ICBM? All it proved was that the navy can shoot down a low orbiting space craft with a type-3 standard missile launched from a warship. I just said I thought that showed some good capability.

Doesn't matter where it's launched from, computers take over as soon as it is.
We can direct missiles within feet of the target with our technology at sitting ducks (relatively speaking).

[Bronco Bob]

Originally Posted by Spider

, I understand high orbit vs low Orbit , and decaying orbit , but you cant , no one can gaurentee all of the satellite will come to earth ..... But My point still stands , space junk has been present since the 60's and 70's , not including the stuff that is natural ... So all of the sudden it is a problem ......

Well, it's more like that as time goes by it becomes more and more of
a problem because more an more junk is accumulating up there thats
not coming down. The danger is that there is a tipping point, where there
so much debris that it starts a chain reaction. It hits one satellite and
causes that one to break up. Then it's debris hits some more satellites
causing them to break up. And then all of a sudden we have a real
problem because such a huge number of satellites are knocked out
and nothing can be put up to replace them, because anything sent
up would be immediately wiped out too. So good by to satellite TV,
cell phones, GPS, space stations and shuttle flights. It might even
be hard to send stuff to the moon and mars because the rocket
would need to navigate through all the debris. There was a post
here a few months back that went into more details about this.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Satellite strike struck diplomacy, too

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Sun Feb 24, 2:08 PM ET

In last week's space spectacular, a U.S. missile did more than turn a dead satellite into bits of space scrap. It also blew another hole in hopes that the world's nations could forge a treaty making outer space a weapons-free realm, analysts say.

Wednesday's orbiter shootdown by a U.S. Navy missile came just eight days after Russia and China, at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, submitted a draft treaty to ban weapons from space.
The U.S. action, ostensibly to eliminate a threat from a falling spy satellite, showed the world that the hundreds of communications, weather, reconnaissance and other satellites circling far overhead are vulnerable — as did a similar Chinese shootdown a year earlier.
The strike by a Navy cruiser's anti-missile missile also pointed up the fact that offensive "space weaponry" and defensive "missile shields" can be two faces of the same technology. The Navy's Aegis system, designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles in space, became a tool of attack last week.
Missile shields are one reason Washington has long resisted efforts in Geneva to negotiate a comprehensive treaty banning weapons in space. Some U.S. shield designs even envision using orbiting systems to knock out missiles. And the Americans aren't alone.
"Hit-to-kill" technologies are spreading, to China, Japan, Israel and India, for example, noted Jeffrey Lewis, an arms-control expert at Washington's New America Foundation.
"It seems to me we may never have had the opportunity to constrain the technology," he said. "It's pretty hard for me to see that happening now."
In fact, the Russian-Chinese draft treaty doesn't directly address this difficult area of ground-based systems that can "kill" satellites.
A new Geneva pact would be the first since the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which outlawed only nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in space. For four decades since, the rest of the world has pressed in U.N. forums for a broader ban on space weapons, but the United States has blocked it.
At the current Geneva disarmament session, because of the satellite strike, "people will beat up on the United States," said Michael Krepon, an arms-control specialist at Washington's Stimson Center.
"The Russians and Chinese will point to their treaty and try to drum up support. But it isn't really going anywhere, for familiar reasons. Nobody can define a space weapon and nobody can verify a space weapon."
It's not just anti-missile missiles that defy easy categorization. There are also ground-based or space-based lasers or jammers that could cripple satellites, and even satellites that could be maneuvered to collide with other orbiters. The Russians once wanted the U.S. space shuttle deemed a military system.
Instead of the elusive, legally binding treaty, violation of which might draw U.N. sanctions, the Stimson Center promotes the idea of a less formal "code of conduct," a halfway step by which governments pledge to avoid "harmful interference" with satellites, and not to test space weapons. The European Union and Canada are among those endorsing such a code.
"There's a growing consensus among nations, including space-faring and missile-possessing nations, that there should be some rules of the road, some standard for responsible behavior in space," said Daryl Kimball, of the Arms Control Association in Washington.
"A key is going to be what the next U.S. administration decides to do."
In a survey of presidential candidates by Washington's Council for a Livable World, Sen. Barack Obama backed a space code of conduct. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she would constrain space weaponization "as much as possible." Republican candidates did not respond.
Geneva scholar Jozef Goldblat, a longtime observer of the disarmament talks, dismisses the code idea. "Very often, such codes simply don't work. People ignore them," he said.
Krepon counters that parties to a code would have many ways to deal with a cheater, including retaliating against his satellites.
The worry that may finally unite the world for action is what Lewis calls "debris risk." If multiple countries compete in testing anti-satellite weapons, they'll litter near-space with millions of bits of debris endangering working satellites.
"You could really ruin portions of the space environment for everyone," Lewis said. "Getting everyone to understand that common interest will be the goal."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080224/...apons_in_space

[epicSocialism4tw]

If this missle misses, does this forum get filled with non-sequitur 2nd-grade level anti-Bush propaganda that pretty much puts the button at Bush's finger?

Yes.

Ah...who am I kidding...this forum will be filled with non-sequitur anti-Bush propaganda anyway.

[Bronx33]

Originally Posted by Spider

Huh ......I dont buy the story that it is dangerous , but I wonder why they didnt use a war head to hit the sat ?

Ya i think it was a really cool excuse to flex some missile muscle.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by angryllama

Ah...who am I kidding...this forum will be filled with non-sequitur anti-Bush propaganda anyway.

Bush's latest overall job approval number is 19% - it's hardly necessary to resort to propaganda to show him to be a miserable failure.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

BTW, "propaganda" would imply "made-up," or "false."

Bush approval drops to 19%

Link

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Originally Posted by angryllama

If this missle misses, does this forum get filled with non-sequitur 2nd-grade level anti-Bush propaganda that pretty much puts the button at Bush's finger?
Yes.
Ah...who am I kidding...this forum will be filled with non-sequitur anti-Bush propaganda anyway.

anti-Bush propaganda................................