The US Military is going to attempt to destroy a crippled spy satellite in the next two weeks. It malfunctioned shortly after its December 2006 loaunch and is now in a decaying orbit.
It is carrying a half-ton of toxic hydrazine fuel, and of greater concern to the military has top secret gear aboard which could give away a few [ahem] secrets if pieces of it fell into the wrong hands.
Gen. James E. Cartwright of the Marines, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that if the first missile failed to strike the satellite, an assessment would be made within days and that two more missiles were ready. General Cartwright described little downside in trying to destroy the satellite.
“If we fire at the satellite,” he said, “the worst is that we miss. And then we have a known situation, which is where we are today. If we graze the satellite, we’re still better off, because likely we’ll still bring it down sooner, and therefore more predictably. If we hit the hydrazine tank, then we’ve improved our potential to mitigate that threat. So the regret factor of not acting clearly outweighed the regret factors of acting.”
How very reassuring.
Reminds me of the anxious few weeks after we were told in 1979 that Skylab would crash to Earth and spray debris across Australia. We just didn't know which part of Australia. Western Australia was the place.
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