Science
Navy SM-3 missile wins space battle over USA 193 satellite | Navy SM-3 missile wins space battle over USA 193 satellite |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Thursday, 21 February 2008 | |
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The U.S. Navy, with the approval of President Bush and under the direction of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, successfully intercepted and impacted the out-of-control USA 193 spy satellite on Wednesday night, February 20, 2008.
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Science DiscussionsThe U.S. Navy AEGIS warship, the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), fired a single tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), which was modified especially to destroy this satellite, on its first try at the non-functioning USA 193/NROL-21 satellite. The USS Lake Erie is a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser used by the U.S. Navy. The ship is classified as AEGIS because it contains an Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, which is used as a defense against ballistic missiles. The missile was fired at approximately 9:26 p.m. Central Standard Time (CST) while the USS Lake Erie was in the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii. The shoot-down had a ten-second window-of-opportunity as the satellite sped at about 17,000 miles (27,300 kilometers) per hour in its decaying polar orbit about the Earth. In such a polar orbit, a healthy spy satellite would have been able to search almost the entire surface of the Earth. The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite was about 153 miles (247 kilometers) in orbit about the Earth at the time of the missile launch.
A network of tracking instruments confirmed that the missile did impact the satellite. It was unknown, however, if the missile made a direct hit onto the hydrazine fuel tank. However, the military is confident, according to media reports, that it did in fact make a direct hit on the satellite. The U.S. military stated that the pieces left over after the impact will begin to enter the Earth’s atmosphere within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, with a complete re-entry of all pieces within forty days. It will be known within 24-hours if the missile did succeed in breaking up the satellite into tiny pieces and making a direct hit on the fuel tank. According to an Associated Press article the military has not tracked “nothing larger than a football.”
For additional information, please read the U.S. Navy article “Navy Succeeds In Intercepting Non-Functioning Satellite”. |
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