U.S. to Test Star Wars Technology to Shoot Down Satellite Resent-Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:05:03 -0600 (CST) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/science/14cnd-satellite.html?em&ex=12031380 00&en=f588f4febd899270&ei=5087%0A U.S. Officials Say Broken Satellite Will Be Shot Down By DAVID STOUT and THOM SHANKER Published: February 14, 2008 WASHINGTON The Pentagon plans to shoot down a disabled 5,000-pound spy satellite within the next two weeks, before it tumbles from orbit, because the rocket fuel it carries could be a danger to people, Pentagon officials said Thursday. The operation will be carried out from a Navy ship that will fire a missile modified for the task, which resembles shooting down a ballistic missile warhead as it begins to re-enter the atmosphere. President Bush ordered the military to try to pick off the satellite because there was a possibility of death or injury to human beings beyond that associated with the fall of satellites and other space object normally, if we can use that word, a deputy national security adviser, James Jeffrey, said. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright, of the Marine Corps, said a window of opportunity to pick off the satellite before it enters Earths atmosphere will open in the next three or four days and last for seven or eight days. If the first shot misses, there should be time for a second attempt before the satellite enters the atmosphere, when it would be next to impossible to score a hit because of atmospheric disturbances, the general said. If the satellite is not intercepted, it will tumble out of control into the atmosphere in early March, he said. Many satellites have fallen harmlessly out of orbit during the space age, in part because they often break apart and the pieces generally burn upon re-entry. And when pieces do survive re-entry, they have usually landed in remote areas or in an ocean, simply because the Earths surface has more remote regions and seas than it does heavily populated areas. What makes this case different is the toxic fuel on board, officials said. But the test will also reopen delicate issues involving the development, testing and fielding of weapons that can be used to intercept ballistic missiles as well as satellites. The operation involves the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and other agencies in addition to the Defense Department. The ramifications of the operation are diplomatic as well as military and scientific, in part because the United States criticized China last year when Beijing used a defunct weather satellite as a target in a test of an antisatellite system. The United States has opposed calls for a treaty limiting antisatellite or other weapons in space. After their test, the Chinese said that they had no intention of getting involved in a space race, and that their test had not been designed to intimidate. Under the Bush administration, the United States has asserted its need to protect its interests in space. The United States shot down a satellite in September 1985, as a test of an antisatellite system under development. In that experiment, an F-15 Eagle fighter aircraft fired a missile armed with a kill vehicle that collided with the U.S. Solwind satellite. Rather than use that approach, this time the Navy will make use of recent research aimed a fielding a naval defense against ballistic missiles, based on the Aegis radar system and modifications to the Standard Missile 3, widely deployed as an anti-aircraft missile. The impending demise of the American spy satellite has been of some concern to rocket experts, who have speculated that the object may contain hydrazine fuel, which is typically used in thrusters for rocket maneuvers in space and would be hazardous to anyone who came into contact with it on the ground, should any of the substance not be consumed by the fierce heat of re-entry. Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation, Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement in late January, when the problem satellite was moving in a circular orbit about 170 miles above the Earth. In the previous month, its orbit had declined as much as 12 miles. Specialists who follow spy satellite operations have speculated that the problem satellite is an experimental imagery device built by Lockheed Martin and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a Delta II rocket. Shortly after it reached orbit, ground controllers lost the ability to control it and were unable to regain communication. Not necessarily dead, but deaf, as Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian center for Astrophysics, put it in late January. John E. Pike, the director of Globalsecurity.org in Alexandria, Va., said in January that assuming the satellite in question was indeed a spy satellite, it would probably not contain any nuclear fuel, but that it could contain toxins, including beryllium, often used as a rigid frame for optical components. Moreover, it is possible that any surviving debris could be scattered over several hundred square miles. If the satellite is destroyed before plummeting to earth, there would be less chance of sensitive American technology being compromised, Mr. Pike said. We are worried about something showing up on e-Bay, he told The A.P. As for the possibility that debris could strike a population center, Mr. McDowell said in January that one could say weve been lucky so far. The largest uncontrolled re-entry by an American spacecraft was that of Skylab in 1979. Controllers changed the 78-ton abandoned space stations orientation to vary atmospheric drag to shift its entry point. Much of the craft fell into the Indian Ocean, as predicted, but some pieces traveled farther than expected, falling harmlessly in Western Australia. Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 652 Brunswick, ME 04011 (207) 443-9502 http://www.space4peace.org globalnet@mindspring.com http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Blog)