Space

Dead Satellite Re-entry Postpones Top-Secret Mission Liftoff

Space liftoffs banned for the next 40 days

By Gabriel Gache, Science News Editor

29th of February 2008, 12:21 GMT

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Image of the SM-3 missile destined to intercept the USA-193 spy satellite

Plans for destroying the USA-193 spy satellite started pouring in as soon as January 4th and, on February 12th, the president of the US, George Walter Bush, approved the plan at a cost of an excess of 40 million dollars. On Thursday, February 14th, the plan to destroy the spy satellite was put into action with the launch of a SM-3 missile, which intercepted and presumably destroyed the rogue piece of machinery. The main priority was to destroy the hydrazine filled tank which could have spread a toxic cloud of material over Earth, covering a surface area roughly the size of two football pitches.

Although the interception of the dead satellite hasn't been totally

confirmed yet, it is believed that an impact between the two spacecraft must have taken place at an altitude of about 240 kilometers. The US government still refuses to admit that the destruction of USA-193 was intended as an insurance policy that their technology would not fall into the wrong hands, and continues to sustain that their main concern was the fuel tank, which presumably had frozen in the cold environment thus could have reached a low altitude relatively intact before burning.

Nevertheless, the US is not out of deep waters. The hydrazine tank could still be intact; secondly, it is generally believed that some of the largest pieces resulted in the explosion of the SM-3 missile may take as long as 40 days before re-entering and burning into Earth's dense atmosphere. This basically means that, during this period of time, all missions involving launching spacecraft into Earth's orbit must be canceled due to increased risk of collision with debris of the satellite.

So was the case of an Atlas 5 rocket, which was supposed to lift off on February 22nd from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. The rocket is apparently carrying some top-secret payload, classified by the National Reconnaissance Office as a satellite, most likely a spy satellite, otherwise why would it be secret? The launch has been delayed at least until the month of March, when the debris will have cleared enough to remove the potential risk of collision.

TAGS:

USA-193 | spy satellite | hydrazine | Atlas 5 | secret

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