[Previous entry: "Time To Sack Up, Fellas ..."] [Next entry: "'Bout Time"]

02/20/2008: "Who's Story Do You Believe?"

Weather permitting, sometime later this evening the US Navy's guided missile cruiser Lake Erie will fire a SM-3 Standard Missile straight up in the air. The missile's target will be a KH-11 spy satellite that has circled in a low useless orbit since a launch failure back in 2006. The goal of the exercise is to destroy the satellite.

That's the part of the story upon which everyone agrees. After that, things get cloudy ...

The government claims the satellite will enter the atmosphere sometime early in March, and will not completely burn up as it plunges to earth. Several large components - nearly half the 5000-lb total weight, according to some sources - will likely strike the ground going really, really fast. Among those items is the fuel tank, which is still full of hydrazine, a hypergolic propellant. Hydrazine is particularly nasty stuff, and the government is saying the contents of the tank could contaminate an area the size of a couple of football fields. Hence, the need to break it up before it reenters.

But is that the real reason?

You may recall that a little over a year ago, in January 2007, the Chinese used a missile to destroy a dead weather satellite. At the time, there was an international outcry over the incident - led by the US. Now that the tables have turned, the Chinese are the ones leading the opposition. The government correctly points out that it wasn't the fact that the Chinese were practicing anti-satellite warfare that irritated our government - although you know damned well it was bubbling just under the surface. Our complaint centered on the location of the satellite - 500 miles up - that would result in a debris field that would take years to finally burn up ... and only after passing through the orbital plane of the International Space Station. Our spy satellite, on the other hand, is flying below the ISS at only about 125 miles.

It seems to me that the government is awfully determined to shoot this thing down, and that makes me think there's a lot more going on than a couple of hundred pounds of rocket fuel. Sources say that the Navy has been furiously working to retrofit the Lake Erie and its AEGIS missle system since January, and the price tag for the mission is somewhere around $60 million - hardly chump change. Certainly, a tank of hydrazine splattering over someone's neighborhood would be a bad thing, but hey - any piece of this thing landing in my backyard is a bad thing. This seems awfully heavy-handed.

Methinks there's more to this than meets the eye. Obviously, the act of shooting down a satellite provides valuable experience and data should the need ever come during more difficult times. But I don't think that's the real answer. I think there's something else on that satellite that the government wants to make damn sure burns up. If I had to guess, I'd say it's either the "eye" of the spy satellite - a classified surveillance system - that they don't want anyone else to get their hands on, or an RTG power source. RTG is short for "radioisotope thermoelectric generator" - basically a power supply that uses the decay of plutonium or some other radioactive element as a power source. Deep space probes have used them for years, and its possible there's one on the KH-11. Wouldn't want that landing in your pool.

Of course, it could also just be a little political "tit for tat" with the Chinese - a reminder that we were in space before they were, and can still do anything they can. Should make for an interesting evening ...

UPDATE: At 8PM, the Navy claimed they nailed it on the first try.