US to shoot down failed satellite at 10:30pm ET tonight
By Thomas Ricker 
posted February 20th 2008 8:11AM
posted February 20th 2008 8:11AM
Update: The deed is now done.
posted February 20th 2008 8:11AM
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so, if this thing is not going to explode then, what should i look for?? and by the way the 10 million is what the alien was asking for. so he could take the satellite home and fix it.
And yet another great amine's predictions have come to fruition. This is exactly why we need the Space Debris Section as depicted in Plantes. I wonder if Technora Corporation is hiring.
This is obviously a test for an anti-satellite missile. They're answering China's recent anti-satellite missile test with one of their own. Satellites of all shapes and sizes and with all manner of toxic ingredients are routinely allowed to fall into the atmosphere without the need to be blown up by a missile.
Perhaps but are they 'school-bus sized' like this one?
It's funny to watch the conspiracy theorists go ape sh!t when events like this occur.
sigh.....
History lesson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon
Um, yes Mike, actually bus-sized and even bigger are routinely de-orbited. For an example, see the Mir space station, which was de-orbited in 2001. Hydrazine fuel is commonly used in satellites and space stations; given the relatively high rate of failure for putting a satellite into orbit, I don't think they would use a fuel they thought had the potential to kill a lot of people if they lost control of the satellite.
I'm actually not at all inclined to conspiracy theory. I don't think the US launched the satellite just to shoot it down. But I think they saw an opportunity to get some ROI and demonstrate their anti-missile capacity, to the Chinese in particular. I work in the military. These little "communications" between powers happen all the time, and most of them you don't even hear about.
Ok, I really just like the graphic for this story. Makes me laugh everytime i see it.
Yes, things car burn and explode in space, as long as an oxidizer is provided. This is what make solid rocket fuel special.
2008-02-21T03:30Z to be precise :p
I say they hit it on the first try.
the satellite may burn up in the atmosphere but what about the alien spawn inside?
from what I know about the atmosphere, this satellite is not going to get through it without disintegrating at 40,000C first. So really is this about military supremacy or the thing landing in your back yard? It just shows how gullible governments think their citizens are.
Tell that to Australians who were rained on by Skylab and came away with pieces of it as souvenirs.
Please post if you read anywhere that this will be televised.
Revolutions are never televised.
You know they gonna miss, right? And Flanders bomb shelter can't hold all of you which means you'll end up outside holding hands singing que sera sera...
Actually CNN says that "bad weather at sea appears likely to put off, until at least Thursday, an attempt to shoot down a faulty U.S. spy satellite." So we call all put our telescopes back under the bed for another day.
CNN's reporting is about as accurate as your local weather man.
For uo-to-date visibility predictions (not weather, but where the satellite happens to be in real time):
http://www.heavens-above.com/usa193.aspx
But I have to assume one reason they're doing this during the eclipse is that it makes things as dark as they can be -- not only is the event happening in Earth's shadow but there's no moonlight reflecting back at us. I think the visuals from down here are going to be pretty anticlimactic.
(P.S.: Someone made the alien joke, and then someone made it again, and again. You can stop now. Sigh.)
EA games, how about updating your C&C due to the recent development in space war technologies.
"Anti-Satellite missile is ready, waiting for your command commander" /sarcastic
i wonder why dont they outsource it and let the chinese to do it for 100k.
can someone post the vid please?
Am I the only one disappointed to realize that the "ET" in the title meant Eastern Time, not Extra Terrestrial? :(
The main issue with this satellite which is different than most others is this one failed right after launch, and thus has a full load of fuel.
The computer locked up or some similar problem and no one has gone up to press CTRL-ALT-DELETE.
There is 1 ton of hydrazine frozen solid in a titanium tank.
Titanium tanks make it back whole all the time.
http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/reentry/recovered.html
But this one also has 1 ton of cold stuff in it to help cool it during reentry. This tank is located at the center of the satellite, so it is relatively well protected. When it does hit the ground, its gonna crack open and stink up the place.
So it is probably a good idea to blow it away. Add to this the super secret stuff thats on there, you can understand why they want to break it up. They don't need or want an explosion, they just want to disrupt the tank/satellite to make it burn up during reentry rather than come down whole.
So in essence, what you're saying is that the military wishes to blow the satellite's load?
Leave it up to a perve to ruin a good technical comment. Sorry.
Not just that... The satellite will blow its load, and it will spray down upon the people of the earth a sparkling shower of its junk.
Just don't look up. You don't want to get any in your eyes, and if it gets in your mouth I do not recommend swallowing. Spit it out!
This is all wrong... can't we just get Bill O'Reilly to misinform the satellite out of it's current trajectory?
Why no explosive? What if the missile has to play catch up beyond expectations? I'd load some C4 just to be safe... Its not like it costs a whole lot.
Has Taco Bell gotten involved yet?!
Sounds like an excuse to use some of the ordinance we've stocked up over the years, otherwise how can we justify our inflated defense budget?
From what I have read it sounds like they might have to delay because of weather
Heck yes, finally something exciting happening in EST!
A useful explanation from astronomy blogger Phil Plait:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/02/19/blowing-up-a-spy-satellite/
Unfortunately, the medium he chose is a 9-minute YouTube video. Please don't kill the messenger (me). (And you can go to that page and read his summary without seeing anything more than the YouTube keyframe.)
"Unfortunately, the timing of the launch -- 5:30pm locally -- means that our naked eyes won't likely be treated to much of a show."
Where the heck is Engadget based? Hawaii?
And if/when that 22,000 MPH warhead misses it... what happens then? Wouldn't it come back down at about the same speed?
Dont shoot it down!!, this will be wasting a perfect opportunity!
Send an free vacation inivite to George Bush. Make sure the location is exactly where the thing is going to hit earth. This way we can keep the planet safe from 2-malfunctioning devices.
The rocket is actually powered by burning $100 bills to heat a steam boiler, and is loaded with silver dollars and gold to add mass for the impact. (Tthat gold leave that coated the Apollo lander just for pork barrel Hollywood show really went over well with the public! Lets use more gold pointlessly!)
I'm glad each and every one of us all had a chance to vote on the construction of this multimillion dollar spy satellite, the launch of this satelite, and the final decision to spend another $10 million to shoot it down. God, living in a democracy / republic is so great, I feel like I'm really participating in my government. Oh, wait...
I'll give $100 to anyone in America who steps forward and says they actually participated in voting on the construction of this total piece of pork barrel garbage. Some Senators in the California, Texas, and Florida space corridor just got a little fatter from this one sattelite, out of hundreds launched. I can't imagine any of them will step forward for a $100 bucks. But hey, you got to vote on this, right? Right? Right? Oh, maybe not. But you got to vote on other laws, right? Right? Right? Oh, wait, maybe not recently, but at one time you got to vote on some single law that you have to live under. right? Right? Right??????
So you're taxes are going where? And its voluntary? Right? Yeah, I didn't think so....
Why not use t3h giant frikken lazerz ?
Umm... The other countries of the world know about this, right?
I mean, we're not going to hear about Pakistan or North Korea getting upset because they thought we were launching an attack against them, and then retaliating with their own missiles, are we?
I mean, I like the west coast. I'd rather not see them blown up by the confused followers of Kim Jong Il.
They were complaining when China shot down a Satellite... And now they are doing it themselves... Talk about hypocrisy...
The difference is that China did it wrong. They destroyed their weather satellite at a height of 537 miles, leaving hundreds of larger chunks and thousands of tiny, untraceable pieces of debris in orbit (see article: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/18/china.missile/index.html). That means that it's still in the exosphere and will stay in orbit for a very long time. This largely increases the danger of other satellites or space vehicles getting hit by bullet-like pieces of space debris, and significantly adds to the dangerous cloud of debris already in low earth orbit.
In contrast, we're going to hit our satellite at a height of 150 miles, which puts it in the lower half of the thermosphere (article: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/18/china.missile/index.html) and therefore almost at reentry. The pieces won't stay in orbit long and therefore won't be a danger for decades to come.
exciting? l think not, yawn!
I will be watching "Ice Station Zebra" at 10:30pm tonight.
When China "shot down" their satellite, it was in a solid orbit, leaving a cloud of debris.
In this case, the satellite is on its way back into the atmosphere, so the debris should burn up as it re-enters.
It pays to do some research before you go off labeling things "hypocritical."
For those complaining about the price, you'd surely think the $10 million was worth it if you got a full tank of hydrazine in your backyard. That amount of money is a pittance to our military. To put it in perspective, the Air Force is paying out $140+ million per F-22 Raptor (180 or so jets in the budget, they really want more like 380), and this is for an air-superiority fighter that would really only be necessary against another superpower like Russia or China.
Just thinking how this must look to third world countries.
Them : So uh you hear Iran is trying to power their country using nuclear energy
Us: I swear... if they do that. God will smite you
Them : You are freaking crazy, i have 3 friends that were killed by you.
Us : Silence, look to the sky the night of February the 20th, we will blow the moon out of the skies with one of our magical rockets of death.
Them : Ok .. We love American idol, we love America and your politics you are but your still freaking weird.
Eat another big mac freaks.
Implode, Explode, Neither. Both.
The satelite will be torn into millions of shreads by the inertia of tons of metal travelling at 22000 miles per hour. Then microseconds later the remaining fuel and oxidizer on the missile will ignite as they mix and expand rapidly in the vacume of space and are ignited by the missile's exhaust plume as it travells through the explosive cloud.
Everyone would go "ooooooohhh Ahhhhhhhh!" if they were there to see it. And then they would all go "auuuuughghhhhhhh!" as they died of asphyxiation decompression and exposure but no one would hear them because sound doesn't travel in a vacume.
Captain Jean Luc Picard, USS Enterprise!
Sorry if the point has already been made. But I think it is pretty bad that a satellite got into orbit which had the potential to drop out of the sky and hurt a bunch of people because it is full of a toxic chemical. Pretty surprising to me that USA would admit to this level of incompetence without a subtext.
So, would anyone from the USA like to apologise for launching the killer satellite into space in the first place? Surely it would have been much more sensible to ask China to blow the toxic deathstorm out of the sky on your behalf - they have already proved they can do it?