Well, not exactly shoot down. Its falling out of the sky, and it will come down whether it is shot down or not. But the US Navy appears to be ready to use between 1-3 specially modified missiles to impact the satellite and break it into pieces. Now this is interesting for a few reasons:
First, the missile being used to intercept the satellite does not use an explosive, it will actually hit the incoming satellite, much like a bullet hitting a bullet. Really pretty amazing given the speeds involved. The kinetic energies of the combined objects colliding is unbelievable.
The excuse for shooting this thing down is that it carries about a 1000 lbs of Hydrazine, in a beryllium tank that is likely to survive the fall, and represents a poison. Now, Hydrazine is used to produce plastic. The world makes 130 million pounds per year of Hydrazine, and we have it traveling daily by truck and rail. The odds of this hitting a living human is about one trillion to one, odds that make any lottery look good.
The satellite is essentially unused, failing a few minutes after it reached orbit, some of the technology is exceedingly important. (X band radar for example can tell the spin of a baseball 3,000 miles away.) So if scraps of this device were recovered, the Russians and the Chinese would gain some ground.
Now personally I think that the US just wants to remind Russia and China, and Iran, and North Korea that they can shoot down whatever they want. A little macho demonstration in a remote area of the Pacific is an interesting object lesson to demonstrate technical superiority. Kind of a modern day Bikini Atoll…
Re: United States to Shoot down it's own Satellite
Well, not exactly shoot down. Its falling out of the sky, and it will come down whether it is shot down or not. But the US Navy appears to be ready to use between 1-3 specially modified missiles to impact the satellite and break it into pieces.
** runs for cover shouting "sky is falling" **
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Now personally I think that the US just wants to remind Russia and China, and Iran, and North Korea that they can shoot down whatever they want. A little macho demonstration in a remote area of the Pacific is an interesting object lesson to demonstrate technical superiority. Kind of a modern day Bikini Atoll...
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Do China and Russia not have that kind of technology i.e. shooting down a target falling somewhere in their controlled region?
Re: United States to Shoot down it's own Satellite
The Chinese shot one of their own satellites recently to demonstrate a new anti-satellite missile technology. The problem is that the debris did not fall out of the sky, and it left a debris belt that will be dangerous to other satellites and anything flying nearby.
They have actually had to reprogram the American missiles, as they were designed to shoot down Ballistic missiles, and the satellite will be moving nearly twice as fast.
A similar ship with similar missiles was recently anchored in Haifa harbor coordinating with the Israeli anti-ballistic missle system. To really shoot down incoming missiles however it takes two or three AEGIS equipped ships to accurately track the incoming target.
and, we will probably not be able to see this event as they will do it over the Pacific ocean hundreds of miles off shore.
Re: United States to Shoot down it's own Satellite
Militarization of space, uggg.
Directed-energy weapons from space that can take out nuke missiles before they can complete launch and assassinations in a blink of an eye. The race to arm space is here.
Re: United States to Shoot down it's own Satellite
not so much UTD.
See my comments in a similar thread in General. A similar AEGIS Cruiser visited Haifa earlier this month. This is more of a thinly veiled message to Iran that the Ballistic Missile Defense is fully operational.
Re: United States to Shoot down it's own Satellite
Ok what are the after-effects of such an operation? HOw do we know It has succeeded? What is success on this subject? What USA has create a greater monster and a greater threat by this action?
Re: United States to Shoot down it’s own Satellite
Ali, the after effects are actually pretty good. By breaking the thing up into football size pieces far more of it will burn up on re-entry. The Hydrazine tank apparently exploded and burned up, with the fumes disbursing 100 miles above Earth.
The real open question which nobody is talking about is whether or not there was a very small nuclear reactor aboard to provide electricity. Most sources say no, but since it never extended solar panels, nobody really knows. Additionally US technology will not be sold on Ebay to the Russians or the Chinese.
There are lots of independent space observers who will be able to verify the debris field, this thing was coming down anyway, it is just coming down in very small pieces, and the current path is over mostly oceans and sparcely inhabited areas.
Here is a great web site that independently monitors military communications:
Re: United States to Shoot down it's own Satellite
There was nothing sinister in USA bringing down the satellite. The odds were highly unlikely the satellite would have landed on a person , home or business but even though the odds were highly against this happening the probability still exists. ANd probability determines the course of action undertaken to saferguard enviroment.
Imagine a flight path and the satellite intercepting. Odds are highly unlikely but probability exists.