First thought: Man, that's so cool, taking a shot from a ship and knocking out a satellite going several thousand miles per hour, 130 miles up.
Second thoughts: How realistic is it to think that this satellite, and its alleged poisonous cargo, wouldn't have burned up on re-entry, and had to be destroyed like this? Is this not perhaps a cover story for a demonstration to China that we have the capability to shoot down satellites too, just like they demonstrated last year? The world hated them for doing so, and creating all that space junk, but if we can say we were doing it because of environmental reasons, well, who could complain?
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My guess is that it was simply a ripe target for a series of killsat tests. The US has been developing anti-satellite weapons for decades now, and, hey! there's a dying Keyhole floating around (and it's big!), so let's shoot that one down.
The hydrazine rationale is a bit weak to me. The tank would likely rupture, and the fuel would burn up in re-entry. The risk of human casualties seems microscopic. Keeping our tech out of curious hands seems more likely.
As for the political dimension, it doesn't hurt as a demonstration. It's going to suck, though, for our satellite-networked troops someday if an enemy starts popping our satellites (developed in a killsat arms race).
Knowing what I do about the government and 'heavily advertised target dates', I'm just wondering does anyone ELSE think it odd that THE NIGHT BEFORE the target date there was a giant explosion in the sky over the NorthWest Pacific along with a sonic boom! And that it was viewed from three states? When have you EVER heard of anything like that in recent memory? AND did anyone notice all the attention given to the 4 emergency response centers opened 2 days before the explosion? Or does all that just pass by consciousness as an interesting coincidence (as intended) to the general public?
Just wondering if the gov. didn't pull one of those -obvious to anyone who's paying attention - fast ones. If they did good for them. I like the date fake personally, worked very well in the first Iraq war. Come to think of it,No big rash of observer videos from the night of the supposed shoot down now were there?
Hmmm. Just wondering why noone ever brings it up.
Greg covered this, I'm filling in a few details.
First, the Chinese shootdown. The target was the FY-1C at 865 km / 537 mi above sea level, in a polar orbit. There is hardly any atmosphere at this altitude, and the debris will stay in orbit a very long time.
For the American shootdown, the satellite was USA 193, aka NROL-21. It was in a decaying orbit. It was intercepted at an altitude of only 247 km / 153 mi. This was much lower, and the air was much more dense (though I still wouldn't want to try and breathe up there). The pieces will be subject to atmospheric drag, and from what I've read, should be just about all down in about forty days.
In 1985, the US conducted an ASAT test against the Solwind P78-1 satellite orbiting at 555 km / 345 mi. Debris was predicted to still be in orbit through the 1990s. The additional solar heating in 1985 accelerated the decay of the debris as well.
For comparison, the space shuttle operates from 185 to 960 km, or 115 to 596 mi. The ISS orbits at 350-460 km or 189-248 mi. The US operation will not endanger shuttle operations as the debris will clear itself; the Chinese one may, especially as the orbital debris drifts further and further apart.
Based on the construction of USA 193, it could be realistic for the fuel tank to survive entry intact. First off, the entire satellite was, according to what I've heard, about the size of a bus. The fuel tank could have been roughly central to the satellite, which would mean that when re-entry did occur, there would be a lot to burn off before the tank started getting hot. Also, the surrounding structure could act like the ablative heat shields on our Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft (it loses pieces to carry heat energy away from the capsule). That could make for an intact tank hitting the ground, and bad news for where ever it happened.
That being said, I think there were additional motivations for the destruction of USA 193. First, a "we still got it" thumb-in-your-eye to China; second, avoiding giving up technical secrets to any who would use them against us; and third, a great propaganda point in favor of ballistic missile defense.
All in all, a great success for the US military.
What's great about this is how uncontroversial it is.
Twenty-five years ago the Left, parroting Moscow's line, dismissed missile defense research as "Star Wars" a dangerous "cowboy fantasy" of Ronald Reagan.
My thinking is it was shot down because it has sensitive tech that we don't want in the wrong hands.
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