Zeroing In On A Satellite

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
February 16, 2008 High-powered team has worked for weeks on a seek-and-destroy mission.
By Robert Burns, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Long before the public learned that a damaged U.S. spy satellite carrying toxic fuel was going to crash to Earth, the government secretly assembled a high-powered team of officials and scientists to study the feasibility of shooting it down with a missile.
The order to launch the crash program came Jan. 4, according to defense officials who described yesterday how it came to fruition for a final go-ahead decision by President Bush this week. The officials spoke to the Associated Press on condition they not be identified because of the sensitivity of the work.
The initial order was twofold: Assess whether shooting down the satellite with a missile was even possible, and at the same time urgently piece together the technological tools it would take to succeed.
In a matter of weeks, three Navy warships - the Lake Erie, Decatur and Russell - were outfitted with modified Aegis antimissile systems, the ships' crews were trained for an unprecedented mission, and three SM-3 missiles were pulled off an assembly line and given a new guidance system.
The decision to attempt a shootdown was disclosed by the Pentagon on Thursday. Yesterday officials said it could happen next week, shortly after the space shuttle Atlantis returns from its voyage at midweek. Officials want the Atlantis to be home to avoid the risk of being hit with satellite debris.
Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters yesterday that it's difficult not only to hit the satellite but even to know the best time to shoot.
With an eye to the possibility that the missile effort will fail, the government has placed six rescue teams across the country to be prepared to act if the satellite hits the United States, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency memo dated Feb. 14 and obtained by the Associated Press.
The spacecraft contains 1,000 pounds of hydrazine in a tank that is expected to survive reentry and a fuel tank liner made of beryllium.
As a first of its kind, the shootdown scenario draws on a wide range of scientific and military technologies - from ships and radar sites in the Pacific to high-powered telescopes in Hawaii and elsewhere, to a specially fitted Air Force plane and a Navy ship that snoops on missile tests.
To begin the planning, the government assembled a high-security team of about 200 people - Navy scientists and missile-defense experts, plus representatives of defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, as well as scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Lockheed is the manufacturer of the Aegis system and Raytheon makes the SM-3 missile.
The Lake Erie, a destroyer that has participated in a dozen mostly successful tests to intercept a mock enemy missile in flight over the last six years, would take the first shot at the satellite at a distance of about 150 miles, just beyond the reach of Earth's atmosphere.
The SM-3 missile aboard the Lake Erie is equipped with a heat-seeking sensor that has been modified to enable it to zero in on the satellite, whose heat "signature" is smaller than that of a ballistic missile in flight.
The SM-3 costs $9.5 million, not counting its one-of-a-kind modifications. It is designed to destroy its target not by detonating an explosive nearby but by slamming directly into the satellite at high speed.
 
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