The US Navy is going to try to destroy the failed spy satellite USA 193 that is due to reenter earth’s atmosphere sometime in early March. The move is billed solely as an attempt to mitigate the possibility that hydrazine propellant, still onboard, would reach earth and pose a hazard to humans. We are assured that this is not being done to show China or any other nation that we can shoot down a satellite too, as the Chinese did last year. Nor is there a possibility that anything else, like spy technology or data, would survive reentry intact and be of any use to anyone, we are told. The first attempt to shoot the satellite down is supposed to occur in 3-4 days (from yesterday), with the target window open for about a week, and it is said that the current Shuttle mission will have ended before it happens so there will be no possibility of damage to the reentering Shuttle from satellite debris. Nothing was said about the increased danger to the next Shuttle or any other near-term satellites launched after USA 193 is destroyed, if they do indeed hit it. If they don’t get it on the first try they will reassess the situation and have two more antiballistic rockets ready to be fired at it on subsequent passes over the Pacific Ocean, a total of three attempts for a "kill". Three-quarters of the earth is water so that is the most likely place where an uncontrolled entry would occur. The joint press conference that announced the plan yesterday evening said that the likelihood that the satellite debris would land in a populated area was only 1% and that the area blanketed would be on the order of two football fields. The satellite is about the size of two buses.
There are three good visible passes - if the weather cooperates (currently unlikely Sunday and doubtful Monday and Tuesday)- of the satellite beginning Sunday night.
Heavens Above
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