http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330696,00.html

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials say the Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March.

The Associated Press has learned that the option preferred by the Bush administration will be to fire a missile from a U.S. Navy cruiser, and shoot down the satellite before it enters Earth's atmosphere.

The satellite, known by its military designation US 193, was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor.

U.S. officials do not want this equipment to fall into the wrong hands.

"The Chinese and the Russians spend an enormous amount of time trying to steal American technology," said John Pike, a defense and intelligence expert. "To have our most sophisticated radar intelligence satellite — have big pieces of it fall into their hands — would not be our preferred outcome."

 

For some reason I don't believe this whole scenario. All satellites are equipped with a
bunch of redundancy built in since flying up and replacing a part isn't always an option.
even the DBS have way more transponders then they could use by law so if they start
failing(or get hit) they can switch to a new one!! For a multi million(or billion) govt. sat
to not have a backup computer or at least a backup flight computer so it can maintain
altitude since it is probably a close orbit bird (12,000 miles) as opposed to the DBS
which are in 22,000 mile high orbit!! A bit of trivia everyone gets wrong, What was
the first satellite?

 

I'm guessing the moon, unless you mean not relative to earth. And that is unproveable.

 

Sputnik (sp?) the soviet satellite sent up in the late 50's?

 

I was stationed in Alaska and got to watch the Russian space station fall to earth and burn up in the atmosphere. It was an awesome site.

 

Where's my box of popcorn?
This is going to get interesting.


Let's see. Satellite falling out of the sky.
We shoot rocket towards satellite.
Satellite is traveling Mach 10+ (Guessing 17,500 mph, or more!)
Rocket misses satellite.
What goes up. . . must come down. (Oops, unless it hits something else that it's not supposed to hit!)

Oh. . . can somebody pass the salt for my popcorn, please.
This is going to be REAL interesting. . . . ..

Here's a 'twist'. . . the shuttle Atlantis is staying in space a day (or two) longer than planned.
Maybe they'll catch up to the satellite and grab it!

 

i think the discover burned up traveling near 25000 mph, from what i remember, i know that has more mass and would travel faster i think???

i tell ya what our missle defense system about to be placed on poland would have an easier time taking out missles traveling slower i would think

 

Here's an interesting background article on the USA-193. Boeing was building the satellite but overpromised and underdelivered on the project. Apparently, the solar array failed to deploy. No power... no communications... no communications.........shooting gallery! Depressing part: That's a $100 million clay pigeon they will be shooting at.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/e-305.htm

 

im watching it on nasa tv right now, there going to intercept it at 150 nauticalmiles up. they will make minor software changes in there system and the missles itself, to make the satelite look like a missle re-entering the atmosphere. its a basic dfensive missle were going to use.

when asked % that it hits target, we said "very high if the missle reaches the altitude it needs" closing at 22000 mph

 

Too bad we don't have Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" defense mechanism in place.
We could laser/phaser that bad boy to kingdom come.

 

When I hear the word satellite, I think of something round and about the size of an earthmover tire. This thing is the size of city bus! Yikes, no wonder they are concerned about pieces hitting us. Wonder what really is onboard that monstrosity?