Forum: Technology

Elite 1K Joined: May 26, 2005 - 08:39 PM Posts: 1496

Nope, too low of an orbit now. Given enough time it may have been possible to retrieve with a Shuttle mission, but not anymore.

It's dropping like a rock now:

http://www.heavens-above.com/orbitheightplot.aspx?Width=600&Height=400&satid=29651

Edit:

That same site also has a "where is it now?" link:

http://www.heavens-above.com/orbitdisplay.aspx?icon=default&width=600&height=300&mode=M&satid=29651

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I see since Feb` 07 they knew it was in freefall. I wonder if this last year has been spent trying to make it work as advertised. Certainly the window of opportunity has long passed for a recovery. Additionally, there were probably other Shuttle priority missions and these missions are set in stone long in advance.

A nuke warhead in an ABM would take care of the satellite completely but that is impossible because of treaty.

Elite 1K Joined: May 26, 2005 - 08:39 PM Posts: 1496

I'd rather we don't go detonating nukes in space anymore. Reading about some of the tests in the '60s, they were pretty cavalier about it, failed boosters being detonated by range safety officers raining down plutonium on and around the launch area.

One test destroyed 300+ streetlights and popped fuses and circuit breakers in Hawaii, which was 800 miles from the test. That same test (Starfish Prime) created an artificial radiation belt which eventually disabled or degraded a significant chunk of all the satellites in low Earth orbit at the time (whoops).

The SM-3 missile that the Navy will be using doesn't even have a warhead, just kinetic energy.

I think kinetic kill is cooler than a warhead. Likens back to the slingshot/rock days... Two Cents

Gives a little more sport to the whole operation. You hit dead-on, or you miss. Like a sniper; one shot - one kill! Twisted Evil

No HE warhead to make an "almost" into a kill.
(Nukes are worse, with them you're talking "in the neighborhood" for a kill!? No sport in that at all.)

Just dreaming! Laughing

Your right of course, although a lot of those tests were done within the atmosphere, their legacy is still evident today. Others were done outside of the atmosphere.

You just reminded me of the story of NASA accidentally "nuking" Jupiter! The Galileo probe was deliberately crashed into Jupiter to prevent contamination of Europa. The probe hit Jupiter at 108,000mph, with the massive pressures some scientists postulated that the plutonium-238 fuel pellets onboard it`s electrical generator would go super-critical followed by a large boom!
I would like to believe the probe just disintegrated before that happened.. Either way we made Jupiter a medium level waste depository. Another glorious first!

I don`t know if the NRO satellite has a nuclear fuel source? I think it is just the Hydrazine and the technology they are worried about......Hopefully.

Elite 1K Joined: May 26, 2005 - 08:39 PM Posts: 1496

They publicly stated that there is no nuclear material on-board the satellite, so at least we don't have to worry about plutonium raining down from the heavens.

They shoot! They score!! Fox news just announced it.

maddog2840 wrote:

They shoot! They score!! Fox news just announced it.

S_H_A_C_K!!!!!!!!! Cool

....

But the Chinese are complaining about the debris!! Can you believe that!

DoD has a short video of it here...along with some ancillary other stuff.

snypa777 wrote:

S_H_A_C_K!!!!!!!!! Cool

....

But the Chinese are complaining about the debris!! Can you believe that!

Yeah, who cares what China thinks!? WTF

China is responsible for "the most prolific and severe fragmentation in the course of five decades of space operations"

HUGE difference in how this was done and where...

SPACE.com wrote:

The (shoot-down) plan comes on the heels of the intentional destruction last year of China's Fengyun-1C weather satellite, which produced a flurry of concern over the hostile-or-not nature of the firing as well as a serious load of shrapnel littering Earth orbit. That debris is still in space, frustrating mission managers and satellite operators forced to dodge the potentially debilitating bits.

USA-193 (was) already on its way toward Earth and the interception (took) place at a much lower altitude than that of the China satellite, presumably meaning that whatever happens, there will not be a fresh load of small junk sent into perpetual orbit.

Now an article from the same site about China's little "test"... Evil or Very Mad

From http://www.space.com/news/070202_china_spacedebris.html

SPACE.com wrote:

The flotsam created by China's anti-satellite test last month is on the radar screens of space debris analysts, as well as space policy experts.

The intentional destruction on Jan. 11 (2007) of China's Fengyun-1C weather satellite via an anti-satellite (ASAT) device launched by the Chinese has created a mess of fragments fluttering through space.

The satellite's destruction is now being viewed as the most prolific and severe fragmentation in the course of five decades of space operations.

Lobbed into space atop a ballistic missile, the ASAT destroyed the weather-watching satellite that had been orbiting Earth since May 10, 1999 [image]. The result was littering Earth orbit with hundreds upon hundreds of various sizes of shrapnel.

Debris cloud

NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office at the Johnson Space Center is now at liberty to discuss the characteristics and consequences of the debris cloud created by the fragmentation of the Fengyun-1C spacecraft.

As of today, the U.S. military's Space Surveillance Network has cataloged nearly 600 debris fragments, according to NASA's Nicholas Johnson, Chief Scientist for Orbital Debris at the space agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

However, more than 300 additional fragments are also being tracked, bringing it to a total of more than 900 bits of clutter. "These will be cataloged in due course," Johnson added.

"The total count of tracked objects could go even higher. Based upon the mass of Fengyun-1C and the conditions of the breakup, the standard NASA model for estimating the number of objects greater than 4 inches (10 centimeters) in size predicts a total about 950 such debris," Johnson advised SPACE.com.

Most prolific and serious fragmentation

Johnson said that the debris cloud extends from less than 125 miles (200 kilometers) to more than 2,292 miles (3,850 kilometers), encompassing all of low Earth orbit. The majority of the debris have mean altitudes of 528 miles (850 kilometers) or greater, "which means most will be very long-lived," he said.

The number of smaller orbital debris from this breakup is much higher than the 900-plus being tracked. NASA estimates that the number of debris larger than 1 centimeter is greater than 35,000 bits of riff-raff.

"Any of these debris has the potential for seriously disrupting or terminating the mission of operational spacecraft in low Earth orbit," Johnson pointed out. "This satellite breakup represents the most prolific and serious fragmentation in the course of 50 years of space operations," he said.

Also put in harm's way by the rain of junk from the Chinese ASAT test is the International Space Station (ISS).

"The collision risk between the Fengyun-1C debris cloud and the International Space Station peaked shortly after the breakup and has been declining since. The risk of collisions between ISS and hazardous objects in Earth orbit is now once again dominated by the background debris population existing prior to the breakup of Fengyun-1C," Johnson said.

Collision of coincidences

Last year's signing by U.S. President George W. Bush of a new U.S. National Space Policy addressed the topic of orbital debris. The document flagged the progress made both nationally and internationally regarding proliferation of orbital debris over the past decade - but also underscored the worrisome nature of space junk.

"Orbital debris poses a risk to continued reliable use of space-based services and operations and to the safety of persons and property in space and on Earth," the White House document stated. "The United States shall seek to minimize the creation of orbital debris by government and non-government operations in space in order to preserve the space environment for future generations."

In a collision of coincidences, the 25th meeting of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) is slated for April 23-26 and is hosted by the China National Space Administration. The meeting is to be held at the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing.

IADC is an international governmental forum for the worldwide coordination of activities related to the issues of human-made and natural debris in space.

Also, reactions spurred by China's ASAT actions are sure to surface later this month at a meeting of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in Vienna.

On the UN agenda is the potential approval of draft Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines that were hammered out last year.

A new "space race" shaping up here? Shocked

That_Engine_Guy wrote:

A new "space race" shaping up here? Shocked

Cynical head on.... Space is the one place that a covert arms race can actually take place. I know there is a treaty banning the "weaponization" of space but who really knows what is going on up there?

Joe Bloggs public doesn`t have a clue whether a "science" or "Comms` relay", "weather pattern" satellite does exactly what it says on the tin now do we? I am not pointing fingers at the US, it is a more general thought covering all nations with a launcher capability. Remember those Russian "killer" satellites?
You can put just about anything up there and we wouldn`t have a clue, really. I would like to think that "our" governments comply with any treaty they sign.
Future headline in China Daily...."The peaceful People`s Republic of China today launched a purely defensive satellite armed with kinetic kill vehicles that will be used to destroy any harmful "space debris" which could endanger our network of peaceful weather satellites. We hope the West understands that this is not a provocative move, if you have any satellites you want knocking down, call us." Laughing

The arms race has already begun, China can knock down birds in higher orbits than the final position USA 193 ended up in. The Russians have the 400km range S-400, which is a huge missile by the way, the S-300 already has an ABM capability in one version.
Any missile ABM capability already has an option to go further "out", reaching further out into space is a not too difficult proposition for a few nations.

I am afraid the "treaty" will go straight out of the window is it hasn`t already and go into the "defunct" category along with some earlier ones.

A buddy of mine was involved with the F-15 Anti-Satellite Program back in 1987, he gave me that same photo you posted above (without the pilot in it), I always thought that was a very cool, sophisticated project. I am glad it worked out, nice to know this technology is "ours" and it works as advertised - Go USA!

What we can derive from the Sm-3 shot are...

(1) The maximum engagement ceiling for the SM-3 missile is >= 283 km (altitude of the hit).
(2) The maximum target velocity that the SM-3 can tackle is >= Mach 25.4
(3) The maximum closing velocity that the SM-3 can handle is >= Mach 30

What it means is that the SM-3 is probably capable of ICBM intercepts not just MRBM/IRBM intercepts as previously advertised.

dwightlooi wrote:

What we can derive from the Sm-3 shot are...

(1) The maximum engagement ceiling for the SM-3 missile is >= 283 km (altitude of the hit).
(2) The maximum target velocity that the SM-3 can tackle is >= Mach 25.4
(3) The maximum closing velocity that the SM-3 can handle is >= Mach 30

What it means is that the SM-3 is probably capable of ICBM intercepts not just MRBM/IRBM intercepts as previously advertised.

Remember that AEGIS BMD was not designed to intercept ICBMs. I am not saying it isn`t possible with the upgrades, but it`s damned difficult against the top of the line threats out there, in fact I would say near impossible.

Boost phase and mid-course is the only part of the envelope an SM-3 could attack.The SBIRS satellites will certainly help speed things up.

We are talking of response times measured in mere minutes. The satellite shootdown was far easier because the Navy had time on it`s side. A ground based interceptor system has much more time to ready itself.

1. The SM-3 KV cannot attack an object that it doesn`t recognize. Ie, if the target is not stored in it`s memory it won`t recognize it. All tests up to now have been scripted and the targets were defined in detail.

2. Tests have been done on separating targets but good luck with MMIRVs. Don`t even get started on decoy warheads. Great effort is being put into target discrimination but defeating decoys is the one field the US admitted leaving very late and even addressing, this has been admitted by the MDA.

3. SM-3 has no terminal-phase kill capability. Patriot `3 is the only system with anywhere near this capability along with BMD ground based interceptors.

4. Boost phase for missiles is typically 3-5 minutes.
Midcourse around 20 minutes.
Terminal phase, 30 seconds.

Obviously the SM-3`s best chance of a kill is in boost or mid`.

I am not knocking AEGIS/SM-3, it is very good at what it does, the system is evolving nicely but lets remember that this part of BMD is part of a layered system that can handle theater threats in the medium/short range arena attacking missiles from rogue states with predictable trajectories and a lower level of technology.

The jewel in the crown is still the ground based interceptor, which currently doesn`t work as advertised. It is an incredibly difficult area to master, killing warheads in the terminal phase, my hat comes off to the US for even attempting to do it with anything less than a nuclear tipped interceptor.

Dwight`, I hear what you are saying, it is a good start and the capabilities of AEGIS/SM-3 will only expand. I just hope that folk don`t think AEGIS/BMD will make us immune from the ICBM threat. Remember that the Navy only has two dozen rounds.

In conclusion, AEGIS/BMD looks to be very capable against emerging threats but it`s still a long way off taking on "first division" ICBM threats.

I.M. (Very) H.O!

Forum: Technology

USN to shootdown dud satelite.