General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed the press about a mission to shoot down a defunct satellite with a tactical missile

Gen. Cartwright repeated the Defense Department's previous statement that the shot from the USS Lake Erie was a direct hit, though he said there is no "smoking gun" as to whether the fuel tank had been hit. The video of the impact showed some indications, he said, that the tank was breached such as a fireball and a vapor cloud. But Cartwright said that they are still compiling all the radar evidence and at at this time the military is about 90 percent sure that the tank was breached.



Cartwright said that no debris any larger than the size of a football has been identified thus far, though the military will be tracking the debris for its next three rotations of the earth. Most of this debris is expected to burn up upon its reentry into the atmosphere. Overall, he said that the various commands working on the project were pleased. He said that this operation didn't give any new insight into the realm of missile defense since the missiles used had been modified away from their original purpose of defensive missile interception to perform this shot. The main difference Cartwright expressed, is that the satellite target is not like the missiles originally intended target--an intercontinental ballistic missile, in that the satellite does not follow a ballistic trajectory, it was traveling faster and it is not aerodynamic.

The two prepared, but unused back-up missiles will be reverted to their original purpose of missile defense over the course of the next few weeks. Cartwright said that all the debris which does not burn up in the next 48 hours should de-orbit over the next month.

The Pentagon PM Report

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell spoke to the press corps this afternoon in anticipation of the military’s window of opportunity to shoot down a defunct spy satellite that has malfunctioned and carries with it a threat of unspent rocket fuel as it falls back to earth. The window officially opens within minutes of the space shuttle Atlantis’ return to earth just after 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Morrell said that the press would be notified within an hour of the event taking place, though it could take up to a day to determine if the target of the satellite’s fuel tank has been successfully hit.

Morrell said that this operation first became an issue for the Pentagon in January. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be embarking on a trip around the world, beginning the first stage in Hawaii Wednesday evening. Morrell said that Gates has been empowered by the president to make the call on taking the shot at the failed satellite. That order will continue down the chain of command to General Chilton of Strategic Command and out to the USS Lake Erie where the missile will be fired. Morrell repeated that this is not in any way a test of the U.S. missile defense system, which he says has already been proven through missile testing.

The Navy also briefed the Pentagon press corps on the specifics of the Standard 3 Missile that will be used to shoot the defunct spy satellite. It is essentially a four-stage missile with three rocked stages that propel the missile of the edge of earth’s atmosphere and a fourth, called a kinetic kill vehicle which uses communications with a weapons system and infrared to hone in on the target, in this case the defunct reconnaissance satellite.

One official familiar with missile tests said that this is not business as usual. Navy officials said that this event is this significant in terms of the technical requirements, specifically that this target is going faster than previously tested engagements and the target is a “cold” target, though it is expected to pass the heat threshold needed to be seen by the infrared of the kinetic kill vehicle. The target’s temperature, increased by the sun, is being taken into consideration, meaning that the shot will most likely be taken at a time when it is day in the Pacific region west of Hawaii. The Navy officials said that in previous missile tests the time of flight can be anywhere between 80 and 25 seconds.

The missile travels at six times the speed of sound and the approximate distance it will go in terms of altitude is 110- 120 nautical miles. The Navy has changed the directional and location software on three of these Standard three surface-to-air missiles over the last six weeks to complete this mission. The missiles not used will be sent back and reverted to their original purpose of missile defense. The closing velocity of the two objects, missile and satellite, is somewhere just over 10 kilometers a second (or about six miles a second) Navy officials said it would be obvious whether or not the principal target, the fuel tank, has been hit. The three ships taking place in the operation will be the USS Lake Erie, the USS Decatur, and the USS Russell all of which are stationed in Pacific Command. The cost has been estimated by Pentagon officials between $30 and $60 million.

Department of Defense announces it will shoot down a defunct reconnaissance satellite with tactical missiles

The Department of Defense held a briefing regarding the  U.S. military's plans to intercept a non-communicative satellite launched by the National Reconnaissance office in December of 2006, using missile defense systems. Present were General James Cartwright, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ambassador James Jeffery, Deputy National Security Advisor and the Administrator of NASA, Michael Griffin. It was explained that the 5,00 pound satellite (which Cartwright likened to the size of a bus) had been unresponsive within hours of obtaining orbit after it was put into space.

Because it can not be controlled, its reentry into the earth's atmosphere is less predictable and it has more fuel that it would have had if the satellite had been responsive during its mission. The satellite is propelled by hydrazine, a standard rocket fuel that is toxic when inhaled. The biggest part of the satellite is the fuel tank and the overall goal of shooting a tactical missile at the disintegrating spacecraft is to breach the fuel tank so that the fuel goes into space or evaporates on reentry.

Cartwright said that the mass of the satellite itself and any potential intelligence value would not be enough reason to take such extreme measure such as intercepting a satellite on the edge of the atmosphere with a tactical weapon."Our assessment is a high probability that it would not be of any intelligence value, just the heating, the destruction that occurs upon reentry would leave it in a state...it would not be of intelligence value...It is the hydrazine that makes this different." The main concern expressed by all three speakers was the potential risk of death and injury due to leakage of hydrazine rocket fuel.

Jeffry said that the U.S. has begun diplomatic roll out to countries and other agencies, such as the UN and the European Space Agency in accordance to treaties on the usage of outer space. Griffin said that the risks to the shuttle and the international space station has been taken into account. The space shuttle Atlantis will have returned to earth before the satellite needs to be reengaged, Griffin said. And he said that the increased risk to the international space station would be negligible, beyond that of the risk of already being in orbit.

The use of a tactical missile was seen, after much analysis, as the only viable option to mitigate risk or injury to human life from the leakage of hydrazine. Hydrazine is a gas that causes burning of the lung tissues when it is inhaled and can lead to death. Cartwright responded to rumors on the blogoshpere that this tactic was being taken to break up the satellite was not to render intelligence on board the satellite unusable. He said that after reentry into the atmosphere the satellite would be dstroy4ed to the point that intelligence is not a factor considered in the intercept of the missile in order to bring it down into an unpopulated area.

The military said that they will be using the Standard Missile III, a naval surface to air missile, which has the kinetic ability to reach outside the atmosphere. These missiles are normally used in missile defense systems to intercept ballistic missile threats.

Cartwright repeated that satellite reentry is unpredictable because they are not aerodynamic, non-propelled. "The goal is to get rid of the hydrazine and have this fall in the ocean" Cartwright said. He would not comment on which ships will be dedicated to the mission of shooting the satellite, but said that they area they are focused on is in the Pacific Ocean in the Northern Hemisphere.

Another topic that came up was  U.S. criticism of earlier Chinese testing of anti-satellite missile technology, where the debris was scattered and will continue to orbit for decades creating a risk to other bodies in orbit. Griffin contrasted this attempt where the debris from the satellite would reenter the atmosphere with days.

Cartwright said that after analysis the only possible conclusions would leave the situation improved or the same, but that the problems caused by reentry would not be worsened by shooting down the satellite. "The regret factors of not acting clearly outweigh the regret factors of acting," said Cartwright.