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Arms Race
Looks like the Pentagon needs to prove who's who in terms of space wars.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...ry/Science/home
"Gen. Cartwright said this will be an unprecedented effort; he would not say exactly what are the odds of success.
�This is the first time we've used a tactical missile to engage a spacecraft,� Gen. Cartwright said."
In theory this should be an easy hit, after all the anti-missile missiles that the US has been firing off. If they miss it's going to be one hell of a black eye in the millitary ego.
i don't think there is anything easy about this. the speeds, trajectory and the fact that the missle has to negotiate outer space once it leaves the atmosphere and hit the fuel tank, it's mind bottling.
Re: Arms Race
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| Originally posted by atbell Looks like the Pentagon needs to prove who's who in terms of space wars. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...ry/Science/home "Gen. Cartwright said this will be an unprecedented effort; he would not say exactly what are the odds of success. �This is the first time we've used a tactical missile to engage a spacecraft,� Gen. Cartwright said." In theory this should be an easy hit, after all the anti-missile missiles that the US has been firing off. If they miss it's going to be one hell of a black eye in the millitary ego. |
its not the first time ever, but first time since the 80s. And ofcourse shooting down a satellite in space is no easy task. The success rate of Patriot Missiles used to shoot down Saddam's Scuds was less than satisfactory.
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| On April 7, 1992 Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Reuven Pedatzur of Tel Aviv University testified before a House Committee stating that, according to their independent analyses, the Patriot system had a success rate of below 10%, and perhaps even a zero success rate. In response to this testimony and other evidence, the staff of the House Government Operations Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security reported, "The Patriot missile system was not the spectacular success in the Persian Gulf War that the American public was led to believe. There is little evidence to prove that the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missiles launched by Iraq during the Gulf War, and there are some doubts about even these engagements. The public and the United States Congress were misled by definitive statements of success issued by administration and Raytheon representatives during and after the war."[9] |
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| Originally posted by Omega_M They are not using Patriot Missile for this operation, but these type of missions are said to have very low success rates. So yeah the satellite may still fall on earth and fall on Manhattan and may create a chemical hazard due to its rocket motor propellant, in an area of the size of 2 football fields. |
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| Originally posted by Omega_M its not the first time ever, but first time since the 80s. And ofcourse shooting down a satellite in space is no easy task. The success rate of Patriot Missiles used to shoot down Saddam's Scuds was less than satisfactory. They are not using Patriot Missile for this operation, but these type of missions are said to have very low success rates. So yeah the satellite may still fall on earth and fall on Manhattan and may create a chemical hazard due to its rocket motor propellant, in an area of the size of 2 football fields. |
? It was done last year by the Chinese! I'm pretty sure there was even a thread about it here. | quote: |
China launched a ground-based missile into an obsolete weather satellite in January 2007 -- drawing international criticism and worries inside the Pentagon that Beijing now has the ability to target critical military assets in space. |
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| Originally posted by venomX Are you all on crack ? It was done last year by the Chinese! I'm pretty sure there was even a thread about it here. Reuters |
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| Originally posted by venomX Are you all on crack ? It was done last year by the Chinese! I'm pretty sure there was even a thread about it here. |
The US did this a long time ago.
I have heard various theories about aliens and nuclear weapons, etc. I am not saying any of them are true, but sometimes they make a little sense.
During the Cold War, there were various UFO siting around nuclear silos, even to the point where entire launch systems were temporarily shut down. The theory goes that the aliens are afraid of human technology because of how we've weaponized every environment we've stepped foot into. Land, Sea, Air, and now Space. They are afraid that the miracle of life-support (whether divine or probablistic) which is earth is on the brink of self-destruction because of earthling civil wars. And let's be honest, every war is a civil war among earthlings. We are all humans on one planet, and the notion of national boundries really is archaic, though, at this time, we are not nearly close enough to technological or societal innovations which would unite humanity in a united world order.
It's just food for thought..
The Russian views are well-founded...
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| Russia: US satellite shot a weapons test Sat Feb 16, 5:54 PM ET MOSCOW - Russia said Saturday that U.S. military plans to shoot down a damaged spy satellite may be a veiled test of America's missile defense system. The Pentagon failed to provide "enough arguments" to back its plan to smash the satellite next week with a missile, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement. "There is an impression that the United States is trying to use the accident with its satellite to test its national anti-missile defense system's capability to destroy other countries' satellites," the ministry said. |
China alarmed...
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| China concerned by U.S. satellite missile plan 2 hours, 46 minutes ago BEIJING (Reuters) - China is concerned by U.S. plans to shoot down an ailing spy satellite and is considering what "preventative measures" to take, the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday. "The Chinese government is paying close attention to how the situation develops and demands the U.S. side fulfill its international obligations and avoids causing damage to security in outer space and of other countries," spokesman Liu Jianchao said. President George W. Bush has decided to have the Navy shoot the 5,000-pound (2,270 kg) satellite with a modified tactical missile after security advisers suggested its re-entry could lead to a loss of life, U.S. officials said on Thursday. "Relevant departments in China are closely watching the situation and studying preventive measures," Liu said in a brief statement posted on the Foreign Ministry's Web site (www.fmprc.gov.cn). On Saturday, Russia's Defense Ministry said the U.S. plan could be used as a cover to test a new space weapon. It will be the first time the United States has conducted an anti-satellite operation since the 1980s. Russia also has not conducted anti-satellite activities in 20 years. China launched a ground-based missile into an obsolete weather satellite in January 2007, drawing international criticism and worries inside the Pentagon that Beijing has the ability to target critical military assets in space. |
It'd be silly not to try out your latest satellite destruction system if you had a good reason to.
But really wouldn't surprise me if it was deliberate. I think there is an international treaty against exactly this kind of 'test'.
the Russians are trying to spin it. they're Russians, go figure
preying on people's ignorance.
the weapons system being used is for purely defensive purposes. it was designed to take out incoming ballistic targets moving at very high rates of speed and offensive trajectories. which is exactly what this is! it just happens to be satellite.
Knowing full well USA, I think only an idiot would consider this to be just the luck of the draw - I think Americans really wanted to test some development of their missile defense that they're working on, so they came up with the falling satellite story to avoid any scrutiny. I give them a credit for that brilliant logic. But it doesnt fool the experts.
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| Originally posted by Q5echo the Russians are trying to spin it. they're Russians, go figure preying on people's ignorance.the weapons system being used is for purely defensive purposes. it was designed to take out incoming ballistic targets moving at very high rates of speed and offensive trajectories. which is exactly what this is! it just happens to be satellite. |
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| Originally posted by Magnetonium Knowing full well USA, I think only an idiot would consider this to be just the luck of the draw - I think Americans really wanted to test some development of their missile defense that they're working on, so they came up with the falling satellite story to avoid any scrutiny. I give them a credit for that brilliant logic. But it doesnt fool the experts. |
Navy to take aim at the satellite, possibly today. Informative article.
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| WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's missile defense program has long been as contentious as it is pricey. But a small part of that system, ship-mounted missiles designed to track and destroy enemy warheads, has proved more affordable and successful. The Navy will activate that system as soon as today when the window opens for an unusual Pentagon attempt to shoot down a failing spy satellite that is hurtling toward Earth with 1,000 pounds of toxic rocket fuel aboard. In eight years of testing, warships equipped with Aegis radar systems have hit 12 targets in 14 Pacific Ocean attempts, compiling a better record than the costlier land-based system of interceptor missiles in Alaska and California. But the task of bringing down the satellite will be much harder, Navy officials warned. The satellite is traveling faster, higher and, perhaps most important, colder than the enemy missiles the system was built to hit. "We're looking at a cold body in space, a body that has been shut down for some time, and so it doesn't have the traditional heating that a ballistic missile has," said a Navy official, noting that heat is one of the primary ways an interceptor finds its target. "The typical clues that both the interceptors and the combat system look for have to be changed. That's the difficulty," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the effort publicly. Pentagon officials said today's scheduled landing of the space shuttle Atlantis in Florida marks the beginning of a nearly weeklong window to shoot down the satellite. There were signals that the attempt could come just hours after the shuttle's touchdown. Ships and aircraft were issued a notice Tuesday by federal officials to avoid the north Pacific test area today, said Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell. But Morrell emphasized that no final decision had been made about when to take the shot. "If a shot is not taken within the 24 hours after that notice went out, there will likely be another [notice] that goes out," he said. ccording to a Web posting by Ted Molczan, a well-known amateur satellite tracker in Canada, the federal notice warns ships and planes to avoid a restricted zone just west of Hawaii for 2� hours beginning at 7:30 Pacific time tonight. The 5,000-pound spy satellite went bad soon after its 2006 launch and has been orbiting out of control. The Bush administration's decision last week to shoot it down marks the first such attempt since Cold War-era tests in the 1980s. The Chinese government has expressed concern, and Russian officials have charged that it is a veiled missile test. Some U.S. nonproliferation groups have questioned whether the threat of a fuel-tank rupture justifies the effort and expense involved in blasting the satellite. Pentagon officials defended the plan and expressed confidence about chances for success. But Navy officials said the mission would not be easy. The interceptor missile's "kill vehicle" -- the very top of the rocket that gets pushed toward the satellite -- is equipped with an infrared seeker, which looks for signs of heat and uses retrorockets to guide itself into the target's path. Since the cold satellite lacks the heat that an enemy missile would have, the operation's planners are relying on the sun to raise the satellite's temperature enough to allow the kill vehicle to find the spacecraft, the Navy official said -- an indication that the shoot-down would be attempted in the daytime. Navy officials plan to use a Raytheon-made Standard Missile 3. Three of the missiles, which cost $10 million apiece, have been readied for the shoot-down attempt. Navy experts have reconfigured the missile's software to help it find the cold satellite in the even colder upper atmosphere. "Once the weapon goes into track, then I think it's a done deal," the Navy official said, using the military term for locking onto a target. The speed of the intercept will cause additional complications. The satellite and the missile will be flying toward each other at about 22,000 mph, nearly twice the speed of a missile defense test. That gives the interceptor, which is not armed with explosives, only a small margin of error. Even the satellite's size -- military officials have compared it to a bus -- may not be much help. The Navy official said the target is the satellite's fuel tank, which is holding the half-ton of hydrazine fuel that U.S. officials warn could turn into a toxic gas if the tank cracked open when it hit Earth. With the satellite spinning out of control, hitting a specific part of it adds to the difficulty. "This is a very big object. If the area of concern is the gas tank, you need to be in that location," the Navy official said. He added that software technologies allow the missile to home in on a small part of a larger target, but the specifics remain classified. Navy officials said the cruiser Lake Erie, which has fired missiles in 10 of the Navy's 14 missile defense tests, has been designated as the ship to fire at the satellite. The destroyer Decatur will be nearby as a backup. Although Pentagon officials initially said that three ships would be involved in the test, a second Navy official said the third ship, the destroyer Russell, might not participate |
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| Originally posted by Q5echo in your, of course, un-biased "expert" analysis you've failed to come up with...wait for it...motive! so "expert", did you know this sytem has already been successful at 11 intercepts of 13 targets in 12 attempts since 2004 >LINK< and is already employed on several AEGIS/SPY-1 platforms including a Japanese destroyer? in addition, why would we suffer through the embarassment of launching a $200 million spy satellite last year only to have it fail in front of the entire world and shoot it down just to fool all the "experts". |
CNN is reporting a hit.
I know the US had many missiles on stand-by and that they would be unlikely to report a miss. I'd expect some non-US aligned news site with moderate credibility to report if there was more then one missile fired, haven't found one yet.
Props to the US balistics team if they got it on the first shot.
A decent French paper discusses the topic and includes a bit of info about the Chinese response (that hazardous material on board sounds like a shame) and a bit about the first US shot in '85 that was launched from a plane.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/18/asia/spy.php
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| Originally posted by atbell (that hazardous material on board sounds like a shame) http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/18/asia/spy.php |
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| "In my opinion, this decision is imprudent and ill advised," said Li Bin, an arms control specialist at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "If this satellite is shot down, the toxic fuel will still be there. Therefore, the pollution still exists." |
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