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Fritz
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Satellite turkey-shoot to commence
« on: 2008-02-21 01:23:04 » |
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Seem to be advisable to delay any high altitude test of your lastest bids for commercial space flight.
I will be sleeping in the basment for a while <snip>...and departing towards Canada less than three minutes later...<snip> and
<snip>...though it will graze western and southern Africa...<snip>,
Blunderov you may want to bunk in the fallout shelter for the next few nights ....
I'm not clear why something that will burn up over CANADA on reentry needs to be shot down; more to this story then meets the eye I suspect ?
Fritz
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/20/spy_satellite_shootdown_intercept_shuttle_down_fun_begins/
Space shuttle descends: Satellite turkey-shoot to commence
US Navy books vast Pacific firing area five days running
By Lewis Page
Published Wednesday 20th February 2008 14:02 GMT
Updated The American military has issued further warning notices to aircraft and shipping in the Pacific, offering further opportunities for US warships to destroy a malfunctioning secret spy satellite before it descends to Earth. Meanwhile, NASA has cleared the space shuttle Atlantis to land as scheduled in Florida this afternoon, allowing the first satellite shot to be attempted above the Pacific in the early hours of tomorrow morning (UK time).
Atlantis, having departed from the International Space Station on Monday, was until lately orbiting higher than the crippled spy satellite, like the ISS. Neither would have been at significant risk should the warships fire, according to the US government.
However, the planned attempt to break up the satellite using ballistic-missile defence interceptors will create a spreading cloud of debris, mostly still travelling at enormous speed above the atmosphere. US officials believe the satellite wreckage will mostly descend and burn up within hours of a hit, but nonetheless have decided to get the shuttle down before firing.
Atlantis needed to land by Friday, as its power supplies would have run out then. If the anti-satellite firing took place first, the shuttle could have been at risk from debris as it descended. At orbital velocities of several miles per second, even a very small fragment of satellite could wreck the shuttle totally; or at least cause enough damage for the heat and stresses of re-entry to be fatal, as in the Columbia disaster. Once the space shuttle commences re-entry, it has no option to abort and return to orbit.
Now, however, Atlantis is carrying out its de-orbit burn on schedule and will be safe on the ground at Cape Canaveral shortly after two in the afternoon UK time. That will leave the skies clear for the flotilla of US warships now at sea west of Hawaii to launch a specially-modified Standard SM-3 ballistic-missile interceptor into the path of the crippled spy sat as it hurtles overhead at approximately 0330 tomorrow morning UK time.
According to the US defence authorities, President Bush has delegated firing authority to defence secretary Robert Gates. Gates is due to commence a nine-day overseas trip tomorrow, but will apparently give firing orders "from the road, if necessary".
An initial warning to airmen blocked off a 1400-mile stretch of the Pacific between the hours of 0230 and 0500 tomorrow morning UK time. The spy satellite will be over the southwest edge of the warning zone at approximately 0328, and departing towards Canada less than three minutes later - perhaps in the form of a cloud of fragments, if an "exo-atmospheric kill vehicle" lofted by a triple-stage Standard rocket has managed to get precisely in the satellite's way.
Since the initial NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) was issued, another has been put out for the same area 24 hours later, indicating a time window for a subsequent shot if the first should miss. A separate warning to shipping specifies that hazardous operations may take place in that area during the same two-and-a-half-hour time slot for the next five days. The air warning will be updated daily, apparently.
The danger area doesn't change, despite the fact that the satellite's track above it will shift gradually westward as the days pass. (Sky-watcher Ted Molczan's pdf plot shows this plainly.) This is because the only hazard in the firing area itself is from falling boosters and so forth from the Standard interceptors - and perhaps from highpowered radars being used to track the satellite and assess the shoot. There is a standing NOTAM in the area warning of X-band emissions from the radar at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, which would seem a logical one to use as it will have the satellite in sight as it passes above the firing area.
It has also been reported that the often-troubled radar-golfball-on-an-oilrig sea-based X-band radar (SBX) might be employed. Text purporting to be a NOTAM has been posted on skywatcher sites and (of course) Wikipedia. However, the NOTAM at least appears to be a fake, as it cannot be found on US government channels.
Actual satellite debris is unlikely to come down in the Pacific firing area - rather it will carry on along the spacecraft's original track, spreading and deviating in complex ways. Ten minutes after a hit, the centre of the wreckage cloud will be over Canada. Ten more minutes after that and the cloud will be racing southward above the Atlantic. Owing to the timing of the shot window, the frag cloud will then stay mainly over oceans for much of its predicted two-orbit lifespan - though it will graze western and southern Africa, and pass above Australia twice.
The Bush administration is still sticking firmly to its story that the shoot is aimed at rupturing the satellite's 40-inch hydrazine tank so as to prevent a toxic gas cloud on impact. China and Russia continue to evince boilerplate "concern" over the mission and possible militarisation of space.
Here at the Reg, we're obviously hoping for repeated, spectacular misses (the US Navy apparently only has three modded SM-3s on hand) followed by eventual sale of the secret sky-spy payload on eBay and further sensational revelations.
A Pentagon news conference is expected shortly after the initial firing, at around 0400-0430 tomorrow morning UK time. We'll keep you posted. ®
Update
AP reports that Pentagon spokesmen have said that the Northern Pacific is too rough for satellite-shooting just now, and they may need to wait until Friday to commence firing.
"We don't anticipate the weather being good enough today," said an unidentified military officer. "It has not been enough for us to say 'no' and put the launch mission off ... But it would take improved conditions to proceed."
The spokesman confirmed that everything else is ready, and said the last possible day for sat-shooting would be the 29th. After that the effects of the atmosphere on the descending spacecraft will make it impossible to hit with an SM-3.
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Blunderov
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Re:Satellite turkey-shoot to commence
« Reply #1 on: 2008-02-21 01:36:54 » |
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Quote from: Fritz on 2008-02-21 01:23:04
...
Blunderov you may want to bunk in the fallout shelter for the next few nights ....
I'm not clear why something that will burn up over CANADA on reentry needs to be shot down; more to this story then meets the eye I suspect ?
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[Blunderov] What kind of "fuel" doesn't burn up on re-entry? A bus sized chunk of metal might make it down to ground level - most meteorites that make it to earth contain some metal, usually nickel. Fuel though? Hmm.
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Blunderov
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Re:Satellite turkey-shoot to commence
« Reply #2 on: 2008-02-21 01:44:02 » |
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[Blunderov] I see on TV that the satellite has in fact been shot down but the appended piece is still quite amusing and filled with crunchy goodness too.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080303/engelhardt
Potshots in Space
Tom Engelhardt
Gee, Mom, I thought I had this advanced ray-gun invention of mine down pat. It never occurred to me that my hand might shake! Excuse me if I miss the apple and blast your head off...
Or rather: Gosh, Americans, with a "window" now open, we were planning to launch a Raytheon-made Standard Missile 3, part of the advanced, sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, to hit USA-193. You know, that's the failed spy satellite with 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, a toxic rocket fuel, that's heading for Earth. But we ran into a little problem and postponed it. The problem? Choppy seas!
Yes, folks, it's possible that key officials in the Pentagon were fooled by the name of the ocean--the Pacific--from which they plan to take their potshot at a satellite that is part of a secret space program the New York Times once called "perhaps the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects." Lucky the USS Lake Erie with its two SM-3 missiles isn't floating in the Sea of Tranquility. (Oh, sorry, that's on the moon!)
Admittedly, the likelihood that the satellite, if never hit, will prove dangerous to Earthlings is remarkably small, according to calculations published at Wired magazine's Danger Room (where this whole satellite fiasco is being very well covered under the Danger Room-suggested name, "Operation Enduring Shrapnel"). On the other hand, the price tag for the whole choppy-seas operation is nothing to be sniffed at, coming in as it does at an estimated $40 million to $60 million.
When the Chinese shot down an aging weather satellites of theirs back in January 2007, the Bush Administration made it clear that the testing of an anti-satellite weapon was little short of an anti-civilizational act ("...inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," as the National Security Council put it at the time). And indeed, that successful test did put a lot of dangerous debris into orbit. Fortunately, since Washington is not faintly interested in checking out the anti-missile systems into which it has poured so many billions of dollars, our act is purely humanitarian. Save the Earth! It's undoubtedly part of the President's "freedom agenda."
Only one problem: we're talking about the Bush Pentagon here. That automatically brings to mind the gang that couldn't shoot straight. The failing satellite is regularly described as "the size of a bus" and the Aegis system as "batting 12 for 14 in tests in the Pacific Ocean."
But come on... we know who's shooting. Along with those unexpected "high seas," military officials are already issuing strings of pre-excuses of the dog-ate-my-homework variety for a possible failure. As the Los Angeles Times reported today in a piece filled to the brim with such military-fed excuses, "But the task of bringing down the satellite will be much harder, Navy officials warned. The satellite is traveling faster, higher and, perhaps most important, colder than the enemy missiles the system was built to hit."
A miss (or two or three, if the Navy follows up) surely won't shock me; and given the cast of characters (think Afghanistan; think Iraq), if, by some miracle, they happened to blow the fuel tank on the satellite sky-high (so to speak), I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be even worse news than a miss. We've never had an administration so prone to unexpected results and unintended consequences.
In the meantime, a small piece of advice: If you're heading for Vegas, bet on the bus.
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Fritz
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Re:Satellite turkey-shoot to commence
« Reply #3 on: 2008-02-21 02:01:09 » |
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[Blunderov] <snip>The satellite is traveling faster, higher and, perhaps most important, colder than the enemy missiles the system was built to hit." <snip>
Nice to have my Cynicism affirmed.
Thanks .... enjoyed it.
Checked outside, the lunar eclipse has ended and no sign of debris shower yet.
Fritz
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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