posted 02-19-2008 10:12 AM               

The U.S. government issued a formal notice warning ships and planes to stay clear of a large area of the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii.

The notice says the two- and-a-half hour window begins 2:30 a.m. Thursday Greenwich Mean Time, which is 9:30 p.m. Wednesday on the East Coast, and 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in Hawaii.

posted 02-19-2008 01:32 PM               

The STS-122 Flight Day 13 package included a comic appropriate for this thread:

Not that commander Steve Frick is disappointed with the DoD solution.

posted 02-19-2008 05:11 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by spaceman1953:
I am NOT starting a pool, but I bet the USS HALSEY (DDG 97) is the lucky ship that shoots it down!

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posted 02-20-2008 09:19 AM               

High seas in the north Pacific may force the Navy to wait another day before launching a heat-seeking missile on a mission to shoot down a wayward U.S. spy satellite, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Weather conditions are one of many factors that U.S. military officers are taking into account as they decide whether to proceed with the mission Wednesday or to put it off, according to a senior military officer who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on condition that he not be identified.

The officer said the assumption had been that the mission would go forward Wednesday night, unless conditions are determined to be unfavorable. Earlier in the day, bad weather in the north Pacific was causing high seas, which may be a problem for the USS Lake Erie, a cruiser armed with two SM-3 missiles.

"We don't anticipate the weather being good enough today," the officer said, adding that conditions could improve enough in the hours ahead to permit it to go forward. A final decision would be made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

posted 02-20-2008 05:37 PM               

1. because it was full of unstable fuel that would not be fun to have thawing onboard;
   
2. because it was dangerously low already; and
   
3. because there are so few shuttle missions left that they can barely take care of the missions already planned, much less this one.

posted 02-20-2008 06:38 PM               

Your third point is not really a factor as if the Administration felt it was a matter of national security, the Department of Defense could command the use of the space shuttle (as is the case with all national assets).

With regards to satellite's fuel reserves, the shuttle has been used to launch spacecraft with hydrazine tanks (e.g. Galileo) thus it can land with them, not to mention that the orbiter has its own hydrazine. The hydrazine aboard NROL-21 is, for the moment, safely contained within its own tank, regardless its frozen state.

Were a means to grasp and stow the satellite in the shuttle's payload bay developed, assuming it could fit in the payload bay, then it could presumably be returned without risk to the crew.

posted 02-20-2008 07:00 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
According to various news agencies, the three ships are known: USS Lake Erie, USS Decatur and USS Russell, and the USS Lake Erie will fire the intercept.

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posted 02-20-2008 07:00 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
However, as the shuttle is primarily no longer used to service satellites since the loss of Challenger...

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posted 02-20-2008 07:09 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by micropooz:
...you could still have thawed hydrazine leaking all over the Orbiter payload bay after landing - a very unsafe condition.

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posted 02-20-2008 07:31 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by stsmithva:
...why did the Challenger disaster bring a halt to shuttle crews repairing things in orbit?

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The Rogers Commission had identified "the relentless pressure to increase the flight rate" as a major contributing factor to the Challenger accident. To reduce that rate, the decision was made to offload commercial satellite operations to the (yet to be fully defined) commercial launch industry.

posted 02-20-2008 08:42 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
With regards to satellite's fuel reserves, the shuttle has been used to launch spacecraft with hydrazine tanks (e.g. Galileo) thus it can land with them, not to mention that the orbiter has its own hydrazine. The hydrazine aboard NROL-21 is, for the moment, safely contained within its own tank, regardless its frozen state.

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posted 02-20-2008 09:15 PM               

The Pentagon has opened the window of time in which it will shoot down a malfunctioning U.S. reconnaissance satellite, a senior U.S. military officer said here today.

Today's return of the space shuttle Atlantis to Earth prompted the start of the optimal time period for shooting down the satellite, which extends until about the end of the month, the senior officer told Pentagon reporters.

Only "tens of seconds" will be available each day for a favorable launch of a ship-based SM-3 interceptor missile, the senior officer said. "The window is small, ...but we're looking for the best orientation of the satellite" before launching the missile, the officer explained.

posted 02-20-2008 09:28 PM               

Debris from the Department of Defense's planned shoot-down of a spy satellite may be visible to skywatchers in the northwestern United States and Canada, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Although it's hard to predict what will happen if the rocket succeeds in impacting the satellite, there is a chance that observers will see broken-off pieces of the satellite reflecting sunlight or burning up as they fall through Earth's atmosphere. The window of opportunity for the attempt is open for the next 10 days or so, though bad weather and high seas make it unlikely the exercise will occur today.

"There is a possibility that if someone were to have clear skies in the Pacific Northwest or Canada, they might see some of the debris," said Geoff Chester, public affairs officer for the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. "We just don't know. If the debris does enter the atmosphere then it's actually quite possible to see it anywhere along the ground track of the satellite."

posted 02-20-2008 09:59 PM               

A missile launched from a Navy ship successfully struck a dying U.S. spy satellite passing 130 miles over the Pacific on Wednesday, a defense official said. Full details were not immediately available. It happened just after 10:30 p.m. EST.

Two officials said the missile was launched successfully. One official, who is close to the process, said it hit the target. He said details on the results were not immediately known...

Officials said it might take a day or longer to know for sure if the toxic fuel was blown up.

posted 02-20-2008 10:15 PM               

Missile Hits Decaying Satellite Over Pacific

A network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the earth's atmosphere.

At approximately 10:26 p.m. EST today, a U.S. Navy AEGIS warship, the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph. USS Decatur (DDG-73) and USS Russell (DDG-59) were also part of the task force.

The objective was to rupture the fuel tank to dissipate the approximately 1,000 pounds (453 kg) of hydrazine, a hazardous fuel which could pose a danger to people on earth, before it entered into earth's atmosphere. Confirmation that the fuel tank has been fragmented should be available within 24 hours.

Due to the relatively low altitude of the satellite at the time of the engagement, debris will begin to re-enter the earth's atmosphere immediately. Nearly all of the debris will burn up on reentry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days.

DoD will conduct a press briefing at 7 a.m. EST to provide further information related to the operation. The briefing can be viewed live on Defenselink.com through the Pentagon Channel.

posted 02-21-2008 12:08 AM               

About 30 people, PG Centre members and public, witnessed what we assume was the demise of the spy satellite USA 193.

Many debris trails were witnessed moving from south-west to north-east at high altitude. One was especially bright and long lasting. I can recall about 6 bright trails and 15 fainter ones.

The debris trails seemed to come in "waves" with the first wave being brighter than the debris that followed behind it. The trails seemed to be in a fan shape with the trails being wider apart in the north-east than they were in the south-est.

posted 02-21-2008 06:39 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
not to mention that the orbiter has its own hydrazine.

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posted 02-21-2008 08:04 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by gliderpilotuk:
Is this what was venting from the APUs after landing?

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posted 02-21-2008 08:07 AM               

The modified Standard Missile-3 fired on Feb. 20 from USS Lake Erie at NROL-21.

posted 02-21-2008 09:15 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ejectr:
GO NAVY!

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posted 02-22-2008 03:00 PM               

The driver would not be specific about the nature of the cargo that was being loaded, but said he was told this by HIS supervisors, not by the people at the loading company.

Of course, none of this can be verified, but made for interesting talk radio.

Guess we proved that we can do what we claim we can do... one TV news report late the night of the shootdown, said "Mission Accomplished"... I wondered where that famous large banner was?!?!

posted 03-03-2008 09:01 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by NAAmodel#240:
Are freeze related Hydrazine expansion issues due to a lack of electricity to power heaters?

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To take it just a little bit further, hydrazine, in this case -- normal case is that when it's used as rocket fuel, it's in a gaseous state. We bring it up to a liquid state with heaters. This has had no benefit of heaters because there's no power on the bird. So this is a frozen state of hydrazine, which leaves for us another unknown: how much of it would melt on the reentry, therefore would be in either a liquid or gaseous phase.