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y ROBERT BURNS and LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writers
1 hour, 40 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - Debris from an obliterated U.S. spy satellite is being tracked over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans but appears to be too small to cause damage on Earth, a senior military officer said Thursday, just hours after a Navy missile scored a direct hit on the failing spacecraft.

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Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an expert on military space technologies, told a Pentagon news conference that officials have a "high degree of confidence" that the missile launched from a Navy cruiser Wednesday night hit exactly where intended.

It was an unprecedented mission for the Navy, so extraordinary that the final go-ahead to launch the missile Wednesday was reserved for Defense Secretary Robert Gates rather than a military commander.

Cartwright estimated there was an 80 percent to 90 percent chance that the missile struck the most important target on the satellite — its fuel tank, containing 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, which Pentagon officials say could have posed a health hazard to humans if it had landed in a populated area.

Alluding to a video clip of the missile smashing into the satellite, which he showed at the news conference, Cartwright said, "We have a fireball, and given that there's no fuel (on the tip of the missile), that would indicate that that's a hydrazine fire."

The video showed the three-stage SM-3 missile launching from the USS Lake Erie at 10:26 p.m. EST, northwest of Hawaii, and of the missile's small "kill vehicle" — a non-explosive device at the tip — maneuvering into the path of the satellite and colliding spectacularly.

He said the satellite and the kill vehicle collided at a combined speed of 22,000 mph about 130 miles above Earth's surface, and that the collision was confirmed at a space operations center at 10:50 p.m. EST.

Asked about the satisfaction felt among those in the military who had organized the shootdown on short notice by modifying missile software and other components, Cartwright smiled widely.

"Yes, this was uncharted territory. The technical degree of difficulty was significant here," Cartwright said. "You can imagine that at the point of intercept there were a few cheers that went up."

He cautioned, however, that more technical analysis was required to determine for certain what debris was created and where it might go. The satellite was described as the size of a school bus and weighed about 5,000 pounds.

Unlike most spacecraft that fall out of orbit and re-enter the atmosphere, this satellite had an almost full fuel tank because it lost power and became uncontrollable shortly after it reached its initial orbit in December 2006. Cartwright said the hydrazine alone was justification for undertaking the unprecedented effort to use a Navy missile interceptor to attempt to destroy the satellite in orbit.

Cartwright said experts were still watching the debris fields and he could not yet rule out that hazardous material would fall to Earth. But he said that as of Thursday morning, debris had only been seen in the atmosphere — and none had been detected surviving re-entry. He indicated that debris appeared unlikely to pose a problem.

"Thus far we've seen nothing larger than a football," he said, referring to debris in the atmosphere spotted by radars and other sensors.

The military concluded that the missile had successfully shattered the satellite because trackers detected a fireball. Cartwright said it was unlikely that the fireball could have been caused by anything other than the hydrazine in the tank.

And Cartwright cited two other sources of information that indicate the fuel tank was hit: the appearance of a vapor cloud and the results of spectral analysis, or the study of light emissions, from devices aboard two aircraft that operate from the Pacific test range associated with the Pentagon's missile defense testing.

Debris from the satellite has started re-entry and will continue through Thursday and into Friday, Cartwright said.

The size of the debris is smaller than the Pentagon had forecast and most of the satellite's intelligence value was likely destroyed, Cartwright said. Analysts had said one of the reasons for the shootdown was that officials worried that without it, larger chunks of the satellite could fall and be recovered, opening the possibility of secret technology falling into the hands of the Chinese or others.

Gates arrived in Hawaii less than two hours before the missile was launched. His press secretary, Geoff Morrell, said Gates had a conference call during his flight with Cartwright and Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of Strategic Command. They told him that "the conditions were ripe for an attempt, and that is when the secretary gave the go-ahead to take the shot, and wished them good luck," Morrell said.

At 10:35 p.m. EST, Gates spoke to both generals again and "was informed that the mission was a success, that the missile had intercepted the decaying satellite, and the secretary was obviously very pleased to learn that," said Morrell.

The elaborate intercept may trigger worries from some international leaders, who could see it as a thinly disguised attempt to test an anti-satellite weapon — one that could take out other nations' orbiting communications and spy spacecraft.

Within hours of the reported success, China said it was on the alert for possible harmful fallout from the shootdown and urged Washington to promptly release data on the action.

"China is continuously following closely the possible harm caused by the U.S. action to outer space security and relevant countries," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at news conference in Beijing. "China requests the U.S. to fulfill its international obligations in real earnest and provide to the international community necessary information and relevant data in a timely and prompt way so that relevant countries can take precautions."

And here's the video of the hit..

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2008/02/21/pentagon.sat.shoot7a.cnn

Go Navy!

Quote:

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China touting on about fulfilling international obligation, and being prompt?

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LOL....I think some country is jealous....

Nice shot... 130 miles above the Earth.

Sure was a neat astronomical day yesterday. Shuttle landed, Lunar Eclipse, and a decaying satellite was shot out of space.

I was hoping they would miss or scrap the mission all together. I thought, even though it would have prob incinerated in the atmosphere, it would have been fun to see where it would have possibly crashed on earth., like maybe heinz field

Simply amazing...

I hope it was destroyed. Wonder if it would have gotten this kind of coverage if it hadn't been reported that China had shot one down or two or something; military ability to punch out geosynchronous surveillance sats seems like some serious saber-rattling like the nuke tests of my youth. Glad we could; concerned that it seems to be a concern for superpower types.

Qs
We shot down our own satellite. Is that a good thing?
Should we be happy?

What are the Chinese squawking about? They're just sore we didn't let them build the satellite in the first place?

I'm going to do my taxes this weekend. Do I need to inculde a couple of extra bucks to pay for this achievement?

He's a very good speaker, I might have to vote for him for President.

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/missile-hits-dying-us-spy-satellite/n20080221023109990001

Missile Hits Dying US Spy Satellite

By ROBERT BURNS,AP

Posted: 2008-02-21 02:31:31

WASHINGTON (AP) - A missile launched from a Navy cruiser soared 130 miles above the Pacific and smashed a dying and potentially deadly U.S. spy satellite Wednesday, the Pentagon said. Several defense officials said it apparently achieved the main aim of destroying an onboard tank of toxic fuel.

Officials had expressed cautious optimism that the missile would hit the satellite, which was the size of a school bus. But they were less certain of hitting the smaller, more worrisome fuel tank, whose contents posed what Bush administration officials deemed a potential health hazard to humans if it landed intact.

In a statement announcing that the attack on the satellite, the Pentagon said, "Confirmation that the fuel tank has been fragmented should be available within 24 hours." It made no mention of early indications, but several defense officials close to the situation said later that all indications point to the destruction of the fuel tank. One explained that observers saw what appeared to be an explosion, indicating that the tank was hit.

Because the satellite was orbiting at a relatively low altitude at the time it was hit by the missile, debris will begin to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere immediately, the Pentagon statement said.

"Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days," it said.

The USS Lake Erie, armed with an SM-3 missile designed to knock down incoming missiles - not orbiting satellites - launched the attack at 10:26 p.m. EST, according to the Pentagon. It hit the satellite about three minutes later as the spacecraft traveled in polar orbit at more than 17,000 mph.

The Lake Erie and two other Navy warships, as well as the SM-3 missile and other components, were modified in a hurry-up project headed by the Navy in January. The missile alone cost nearly $10 million, and officials estimated that the total cost of the project was at least $30 million.

The launch of the Navy missile amounted to an unprecedented use of components of the Pentagon's missile defense system, designed to shoot down hostile ballistic missiles in flight - not kill satellites.

The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates - not a military commander - made the decision to pull the trigger.

Gates had arrived in Hawaii a few hours before the missile was launched. He was there to begin a round-the-world trip, not to monitor the missile operation. His press secretary, Geoff Morrell, told reporters traveling with Gates that the defense chief gave the go-ahead at 1:40 p.m. EST while en route from Washington.

Morrell said Gates had a conference call during the flight with Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of Strategic Command, and Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They told him that "the conditions were ripe for an attempt, and that is when the secretary gave the go-ahead to take the shot, and wished them good luck," Morrell said.

At 10:35 p.m. EST, Gates spoke to both generals again and "was informed that the mission was a success, that the missile had intercepted the decaying satellite, and the secretary was obviously very pleased to learn that," said Morrell.

The government organized hazardous materials teams, under the code name "Burnt Frost," to be flown to the site of any dangerous or otherwise sensitive debris that might land in the United States or elsewhere.

Also, six federal response groups that are positioned across the country by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were alerted but had not been activated Wednesday, FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said before the missile launch. "These are purely precautionary and preparedness actions only," he said.

President Bush gave his approval last week to attempt the satellite shootdown on grounds that it was worth trying to destroy the toxic fuel on board the satellite before it could possibly land in a populated area.

The three-stage Navy missile, designated the SM-3, has chalked up a high rate of success in a series of tests since 2002, in each case targeting a short- or medium-range ballistic missile, never a satellite. A hurry-up program to adapt the missile for this anti-satellite mission was completed in a matter of weeks; Navy officials said the changes would be reversed once this satellite was down.

The government issued notices to aviators and mariners to remain clear of a section of the Pacific Ocean beginning at 10:30 p.m. EST Wednesday, indicating the first window of opportunity to launch the missile.

Having lost power shortly after it reached orbit in late 2006, the satellite was out of control and well below the altitude of a normal satellite. The Pentagon determined it should hit it with an SM-3 missile just before it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, in that way minimizing the amount of debris that would remain in space.

Left alone, the satellite would have been expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would have been expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would have scattered debris over several hundred miles.

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor in Honolulu and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.


Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.


Here's to the Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie!

That video was pretty damn cool! And of course it was a success. First it was done by the Navy, and 2nd, the ship was the USS Lake Erie.

Like the military or not, you have to love the way they talk...."consequence management".

pwn3d