amcflyboy Posted February 24, 2008 Posted February 24, 2008 I'm on my way back from ODF, and we're crossing the Pacific from Pago to Hickam yesterday. My F.E. is reading a New Zealand newspaper and is reading the article about this very issue and starts talking about it with the crew. He then proceeds to say that we should be looking outside looking for debris because the article stated where abouts the initial debris should be impacting with the Ocean, meanwhile we're 4 hours from either location! Battlestations everyone....
M2 Posted February 25, 2008 Posted February 25, 2008 You knew it was only a matter of time before the Spwing-wearing space geeks started whining about their role in it all... USAF Played Big Role in Satellite Shot: Air Force personnel and expertise as well as its space-monitoring assets contributed much to the US military's successful intercept of a doomed American intelligence satellite on Feb. 20, USAF's top space general said Thursday (see above). "Air Force Space Command and our space surveillance network and our space situational awareness and our ability to understand the space environment were all critical and significant players in that activity," Gen. Robert Kehler, commander of Air Force Space Command told an audience at AFA's Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando. Speaking after his presentation to reporters, Kehler elaborated, saying AFSPC's space-surveillance assets were in use for weeks prior to the shootdown mission to help plan it and will continue to monitor the remains of the satellite for weeks to come. "Maintenance of the catalog [of on-orbit objects], doing collision avoidance and then the analytical capability that we could bring from various parts of Air Force Space Command were all used here in a substantial way," he said. "Air Force ground- and space-based sensors presented to US Strategic Command were part of the sensor network and played a big role, both in tracking the target ahead of time, giving precise target location ahead of time, and then in monitoring both the launch and the impact and then the post-[shot] debris assessment." -Michael C. Sirak The Navy schwacked it, stand back and let them bask in the glory! They deserve it... Cheers! M2
afthunderchief16 Posted February 25, 2008 Posted February 25, 2008 It vas a great success... (think Kazakh accent...) Pentagon: Satellite hit a success By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer 2 hours, 39 minutes ago The Pentagon said Monday it has a "high degree of confidence" that the missile fired at a dead U.S. spy satellite in space destroyed the satellite's fuel tank as planned. In its most definitive statement yet on the outcome of last Wednesday's shootdown over the Pacific, the Pentagon said that based on debris analysis it is clear that the Navy missile destroyed the fuel tank, "reducing, if not eliminating, the risk to people on Earth from the hazardous chemical." The tank had 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, a toxic substance that U.S. government officials believed posed a potential health hazard to humans if the satellite had descended to Earth on its own. The presence of the hydrazine was cited by U.S. officials as the main reason to shoot down the satellite — described as the size of a school bus — which would otherwise have fallen out of orbit on its own in early March. The satellite lost power shortly after reaching its initial orbit in December 2006. Pentagon officials had said almost immediately after the shootdown by a missile fired from the USS Lake Erie that it appeared the tank had been hit squarely, but they carried out further analysis before reaching a final conclusion. As of Monday there had been no reports of debris landing on Earth, and it is unlikely any will remain intact to impact the ground, the Pentagon statement said. "By all accounts this was a successful mission," Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in the Pentagon statement Monday. "From the debris analysis, we have a high degree of confidence the satellite's fuel tank was destroyed and the hydrazine has been dissipated." The Pentagon statement said a space operations center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is tracking fewer than 3,000 pieces of satellite debris, all smaller than a football.
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