A quick game of Whack-A-Mole
That satellite that was in the decaying orbit with the half-ton of uber-deadly
Hydrazine on board.
Blammo. Orbital Decay and gone from Space in a few days.
From the
NY Times:
Missile Strikes a Spy Satellite Falling From Its Orbit
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.
The folks at
CNN/Technology also have a report:
Defense Department: Navy missile hits dying spy satellite
The U.S. Navy succeeded in its effort to shoot down an inoperable spy satellite before it could crash to Earth and potentially release a cloud of toxic gas, the Department of Defense said Wednesday.
The first opportunity for the Navy to shoot down the satellite came about 10:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. The plan included firing a missile from the USS Lake Erie in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii to destroy the satellite.
"A network of land-, air-, sea- and space-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the Earth's atmosphere," a Department of Defense statement said.
"At approximately 10:26 p.m. EST today, a U.S. Navy AEGIS warship, the USS Lake Erie, fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3, hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph."
And the results of the mission:
"Debris will begin to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere immediately," the department said. "Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days."
And:
The missile didn't carry a warhead, with authorities saying the impact was expected to be sufficient to destroy the fuel tank.
Good work; crew of the USS Lake Erie!
And, still from CNN, how NOT to do this:
In January 2007, China used a land-based missile to destroy a 2,200-pound satellite that was orbiting 528 miles above the Earth. The impact left more than 100,000 pieces of debris orbiting the planet, NASA estimated -- 2,600 of them more than 4 inches across. The U.S. agency called the breakup of the Fengyun-C satellite the worst in history.
The Chinese crap is still up there after one year. Ours will be 99.999% gone in 40 days.
Posted by DaveH at February 20, 2008 11:01 PM