Satellite Shootdown

Apparently we were successful in bringing down that bird! I wonder if the whole thing was a set-up to send a message to our friends in the East? It wouldn't bother me if it was. Either way it's pretty cool.

Geoff

Flying Turtle said:

Apparently we were successful in bringing down that bird! I wonder if the whole thing was a set-up to send a message to our friends in the East? It wouldn't bother me if it was. Either way it's pretty cool.

Geoff

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Pictures?
I thought they prosponed this event.

Heard on the radio they were successful also. Apparently there was toxic fuel on board they were concerned about. It seems that it would burn up upon re-entry. There was probably sensative intel they wanted to destroy on board.

IMO the toxic fuel was a pretext. They both wanted to send a signal and to test an antisatellite weapon, so they can disrupt other countries' communications when they want to. The undersea cable cuts from a month or so ago were more of the same.

The hydrazine fuel commonly used as propellants in satellite positioning thrusters is toxic, but on exposure to air it quickly breaks down into harmless compounds. Water also breaks it down, but this takes longer.

The relatively small quantity of fuel remaining on this satellite, the unlikelihood of its container surviving re-entry intact, and the negligible threat to human health that its release into the atmosphere would represent, strongly suggest that its destruction was merely a pretext for this exercise, as paulr says.

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They were killing two birds with one stone.

First to destroy any hardware or data we didn't want anyone getting their greasy hands on.

Second was to send the message 'DON'T FU&% WITH US'
because we'll simply put you in place.

It was a big stunt, because if the military wanted to do it quietly.........

Don't these things have Earth-to-Target cams yet? Would have been nice viewing....

All the above. Good show.

DM51 said:

The hydrazine fuel commonly used as propellants in satellite positioning thrusters is toxic, but on exposure to air it quickly breaks down into harmless compounds. Water also breaks it down, but this takes longer.

The relatively small quantity of fuel remaining on this satellite, the unlikelihood of its container surviving re-entry intact, and the negligible threat to human health that its release into the atmosphere would represent, strongly suggest that its destruction was merely a pretext for this exercise, as paulr says.

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Good info about the fuel, but I thought this was a satellite that was JUST launched a year ago or something like that. This, to me, would signal it either had a very specific purpose or never functioned correctly, which would mean it could have had a FULL fuel complement. I was on another forum where they're really into this type of thing. One of the guys had photographed the satellite and noted that no solar panels deployed. The conclusion was that it was radioactively powered or that the thin failed miserably just after launch. *shrug* Either way, I thought they wanted to avoid this option to keep thousands of new razor sharp objects from circling earth at supersonic speeds...?

lots of info out there about this. This sat never reached it's proper orbit. It's secondary booster failed to fire. So it was so low that there was atmospheric drag on it that was going to bring it down in a hurry and in an unpredictable place.

As far as sending a signal, this isn't much of a signal. The signal this sends to the Chinese government is that well.. we can bring down a sat in a very low orbit but not nearly as high as the one you demonstrated just recently. So our system isn't as good as your own. Hardly the message we want to send. It definitely was an opportunity to test their system, and of course there is some PR and propaganda to be gained from it. But if they were staging a test to make a point from the beginning they coudl have demonstrated it against a much more difficult target or at least a target with something in common with the sats that they might actually want to take out from a foreign country.

It is my understanding that a lower orbit equals a faster speed, so assuming you have the power to escape earths gravity then hitting a low orbit satellite may indeed be trickier than hitting a high orbit one... Just my $.02

Unless they had this whole system prepared ahead of time 'just in case' of this type of scenario, I have to say I am rather impressed they could come up with something THIS quickly. 'uhhh, what are we gonna do? Yeah, that sounds good. Just take that warhead off the top, fill it completely with fuel and shoot. Good job guys.'

The video was shown on CNN this morning at a press conference. Here's a video of that press conference. Gizmodo.

Faaaaaarrrr out..... man!

It would have been more impressive if they would have used the particle beam weapon they got on the secret space platfrom in orbit.

Gary

orbital said:

+

They were killing two birds with one stone.

First to destroy any hardware or data we didn't want anyone getting their greasy hands on.

Second was to send the message 'DON'T FU&% WITH US'
because we'll simply put you in place.

It was a big stunt, because if the military wanted to do it quietly.........

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If that were the case it would be extremely short sighted and self-defeating to start a "my space weapon is better than yours" competition considering how much world commerce depends on satellites. Lets hope the second message was more wishful thinking and not the signal they were attempting to send.

James S said:

As far as sending a signal, this isn't much of a signal. The signal this sends to the Chinese government is that well.. we can bring down a sat in a very low orbit but not nearly as high as the one you demonstrated just recently. So our system isn't as good as your own.

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I would have to chalenge your rationale. What evidence do you have that we cannot bring down one as high?

COMMANDR said:

It would have been more impressive if they would have used the particle beam weapon they got on the secret space platfrom in orbit.

Gary

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They DID.

The missile was a red herring.

A diversion.

I question the whole rationale for the shot, or at least what they said. Would the tank have to be hardened to withstand re-entry and become a problem? If it was not "Hardened" would it not burn up and explode upon re-entry. I think they wanted to break it up into as many pieces as possible before re-entry so those smaller pieces would burn. And.... I think there is still more.

James S said:

As far as sending a signal, this isn't much of a signal. The signal this sends to the Chinese government is that well.. we can bring down a sat in a very low orbit but not nearly as high as the one you demonstrated just recently. So our system isn't as good as your own. Hardly the message we want to send. It definitely was an opportunity to test their system, and of course there is some PR and propaganda to be gained from it. But if they were staging a test to make a point from the beginning they coudl have demonstrated it against a much more difficult target or at least a target with something in common with the sats that they might actually want to take out from a foreign country.

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Actually:

This was a more difficult target, fired upon by a different operating system. The US was testing plane-launched missles in the mid-80s that had an effective range similar to the Chinese shoot.

China shot down a satellite in fixed orbit with a ground-based ballistic missle.

The recent US shoot was on a target moving much faster, operating at a cooler temperature and was done by using ordnance fired from a ship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

Shooting one down from the ground on a percise flight path is one thing.

Having the capability to knock one down at a moments notice from surface assets that can maintain a 24/7 state or high alert and readiness is quite another.

This is not about killing satellites, We took an asset designed to kill ICBM's and were able to use it outside its normal intended use and demonstrate effectiveness. Nobody elses satellite killing programs can even hope to do that.

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