U.S. To Attempt To Shoot Down Faulty Satellite

The effort will be a real-world test of the nation’s antiballistic missile systems and its antisatellite abilities, even though the Pentagon said it was not using the effort to test its most exotic weapons or send a message to any adversaries. The ramifications of the operation are diplomatic, as well as military and scientific, in part because the United States criticized China last year when Beijing tested an antisatellite system with an old weather satellite as a target. The three-ship convoy assigned to the new task will stalk the satellite’s orbital path across the northern Pacific, tracking the satellite as it circles the globe 16 times a day. The sensors and weapons in the operation, modified from antiaircraft defenses for use as a shield against incoming missiles and installed on Navy cruisers, have been used just in carefully controlled tests. This time, the target is not an incoming warhead or a dummy test target, but a doomed experimental satellite the size of a school bus and weighing 5,000 pounds. It died shortly after being launched in December 2006 and contains a half-ton of hydrazine, a fuel that officials said could burn the lungs and even be deadly in extended doses. The tank is believed to be sturdy enough to survive re-entry, based on studies of the tank that fell to Earth after the Columbia shuttle disaster in 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/us/15satellite.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1203082610-W+X4DsIlAeTzvYaJXcPFZw

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