U.S.: Missile Smashed Spy Satellite

Pentagon Has "High Degree Of Confidence" Missile Hit Falling Satellite's Fuel Tank

(CBS/AP)  The Pentagon says a U.S. missile smashed a disabled spy satellite that was headed for earth and the military is tracking the debris as it falls over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon press conference Thursday that he couldn't rule out that hazardous material would fall to the earth.

But he says so far officials have tracked "nothing larger than a football."

Cartwright says officials also "have a high degree of confidence" - though are not ready to say for sure - that the missile launched from a Navy ship near Hawaii struck the satellite's fuel tank. Officials said the toxic hydrazine fuel in the tank would have caused a hazard had it fallen to Earth.

The military concluded that the missile had successfully shattered the satellite because trackers detected a fire ball, which seemed to indicate the exploding hydrazine in the tank. A vapor cloud also suggested the destruction of the fuel, he said.

He said officials are 80 percent to 90 percent sure that the tank was breached and the hazardous material was vented off but will know better in the next couple of days.

Debris from the satellite has started re-entry and will continue through Thursday and into Friday, Cartwright said.

Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days, officials said.

The size of the debris is smaller than the Pentagon had forecast and most of the satellite's intelligence value was likely destroyed, Cartwright said. Though the Pentagon has played down that aspect of the shootdown, analysts had said one of the reasons for the operation was that officials worried that without it, larger chunks of the satellite could fall and be recovered, opening the possibility of secret technology falling into the hands of the Chinese or others.

China said Thursday it was on the alert for possible harmful fallout from the shootdown and urged Washington to promptly release data about the action.

"China is continuously following closely the possible harm caused by the U.S. action to outer space security and relevant countries," ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular news conference.

"China requests the U.S. to fulfill its international obligations in real earnest and provide to the international community necessary information and relevant data in a timely and prompt way so that relevant countries can take precautions."

The United States criticized the Chinese government last year for conducting an anti-satellite missile test launch, but has denied this launch was a response to that action by Beijing.

The USS Lake Erie, armed with an SM-3 missile designed to knock down incoming missiles - not orbiting satellites - launched the attack at 10:26 p.m. EST, according to the Pentagon. It hit the satellite about three minutes later as the spacecraft traveled in polar orbit at more than 17,000 mph.

The Lake Erie and two other Navy warships, as well as the SM-3 missile and other components, were modified in a hurry-up project headed by the Navy in January. The missile alone cost nearly $10 million, and officials estimated that the total cost of the project was at least $30 million.

An elaborate command system that stretched from the Pentagon to Hawaii controlled the operation, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.

The launch of the Navy missile, seen at left, amounted to an unprecedented use of components of the Pentagon's missile defense system, designed to shoot down hostile ballistic missiles in flight.

The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates - not a military commander - made the decision to pull the trigger.

Gates had arrived in Hawaii a few hours before the missile was launched. He was there to begin a round-the-world trip, not to monitor the missile operation. His press secretary, Geoff Morrell, told reporters traveling with Gates that the defense chief gave the go-ahead at 1:40 p.m. EST while en route from Washington.

Morrell said Gates had a conference call during the flight with Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of Strategic Command, and Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They told him that "the conditions were ripe for an attempt, and that is when the secretary gave the go-ahead to take the shot, and wished them good luck," Morrell said.

At 10:35 p.m. EST, Gates spoke to both generals again and "was informed that the mission was a success, that the missile had intercepted the decaying satellite, and the secretary was obviously very pleased to learn that," said Morrell.

The government organized hazardous materials teams, under the code name "Burnt Frost," to be flown to the site of any dangerous or otherwise sensitive debris that might land in the United States or elsewhere.

Also, six federal response groups that are positioned across the country by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were alerted but had not been activated Wednesday, FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said before the missile launch. "These are purely precautionary and preparedness actions only," he said.

CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen said the negative reaction to the satellite shootdown was predictable. "China is also using the occasion to criticize the U.S. for not joining a joint China-Russia proposal for a treaty banning weapons in outer space," he said.

The Chinese have consistently opposed the Star Wars anti-missile defense program which is being actively pursued by the Bush administration, saying it could spark a new missile race.

That said, added Petersen, the Chinese have been aggressively upgrading their own military, leaving behind the concept of a million soldiers needed to win a battle, and are now focusing on high-tech weapons and systems.

"It would be optimistic to say the Chinese motives for criticizing the U.S. over weapons in outer space are about world peace," said Petersen. "In fact, it's also about China's desire to field a military as high-tech as America's someday soon. Every time America makes another technological advance, China's ambitions suffer a setback."

Andrei Kokoshin, a former secretary of the Russian Security Council, and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said "There is nothing new in this show from the point of view of defense technologies. The former Soviet Union and the United States were capable of doing that in the 20th century. However, from the political point of view, this may result in a new stage in space militarization," according to Interfax reports.

President Bush gave his approval last week to attempt the satellite shootdown on grounds that it was worth trying to destroy the toxic fuel on board the satellite before it could possibly land in a populated area.

The three-stage Navy missile, designated the SM-3, has chalked up a high rate of success in a series of tests since 2002, in each case targeting a short- or medium-range ballistic missile, never a satellite. A hurry-up program to adapt the missile for this anti-satellite mission was completed in a matter of weeks; Navy officials said the changes would be reversed once this satellite was down.

Having lost power shortly after it reached orbit in late 2006, the satellite was out of control and well below the altitude of a normal satellite. The Pentagon determined it should hit it with an SM-3 missile just before it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, in that way minimizing the amount of debris that would remain in space.

Left alone, the satellite would have been expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would have been expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would have likely scattered debris over several hundred miles.

[cfin5]

I would have had the Navy blow that thing to smithereens too. Can''t take a chance letting enemies get a hold of it,.....or even claim that they have done so for their own propaganda. The tinier the bits the better. Besides, sounds fun to do anyway.

[zootallures2]

The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates - not a military commander - made the decision to pull the trigger.

Was Bush reading a goat story or something less symbolic like a book about Chenese recepies?

[zootallures2]

Yes, they are very good at pulverizing things down to a very small size.

[endofempire]

nancy: The Patriot was never intended to fulfill an anti-missile role. It was a replacement for the aging Nike/Hercules batteries back in the late 80''s and their intended role was to shoot down fighters/bombers by using a close-proximity fuse and causing sufficient damage on the aircraft to bring it down. Using it in the same fashion against a missile that is, well, on its way down, always had mixed results. The fact that the proximity fuse was able to re-direct the trajectory of most Scuds and the fact that a handful were actually destroyed, was a mere byproduct of the technology that existed back then and the only defense we had... That and the fact that they landed within a 1-mile radius of the intended target.

[memerider]

Thank you for your service, Navy. Job well done.

[l00ker]

Good shot, no matter what the Chinese, nor what this Putin says.

[hypnotoad72]

Nancy_Naive - technology and related tactical response times have improved since the early 1990s.

I''ll also admit to being naive; I did not copy and paste that link you''d provided. Maybe it is more recent...

[jlmcscanner]

You was there? You was a looking through yo'''' little peephole telescope and saw them come together?

Regards,


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Posted by Nancy_Naive at 06:26 PM : Feb 21, 2008


Exactly, and it`s were there not was there.You are definitely a pruduct of public school education.Did you question the chinese communists ??? I bet not.You are also a America hater so do patriotic Americans a favor and move to china or russia, we will be just fine without you.

[jlmcscanner]

Yes I did indeed

[jlmcscanner]

This is the equivalent of an intercontinental ballistic BARN and they''''ll miss the broad side of it.

Regards,


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Posted by Nancy_Naive at 07:50 PM : Feb 20, 2008



Well...wrong again Nancy, your so stupid it`s painful.

[bobnjersey]

[has anybody thanked the gop rebuilt american military,,, salvaged from the gutting wet willy kkklowntoon and the demonic-rats gave it,,,]
[Posted by terrorislam0 at 01:12 PM : Feb 21, 2008]

didn''t they go to war with that military (the gutted one)... didn''t they ''win'' within a short period? of course ... now that the gop policy of a lean force that can sustain endless deployments w/ less downtime is in place ... it''s sure to improve.

and of course ... don''t forget about the piles of money they''re throwing at the high school dropouts to join.

[denn034]

In other words, the world''s uproar was for nothing. It was just US bashing. Shows them.

[squidly8]

dragonwagon, no in fact I didn''t. It is inane to believe that everything that happens on the planet is a GOP conspiracy. You must live your life in fear of the next thing the gov''t is going to do. What a sad way to live your life in fear believing that somebody is always out to get you. Are you off your lithium?

Why don''t you go out to Dallas and look on the grassy knoll for evidence that someone currently in the government''s employ was the second shooter. GWB is from Texas and he was 17 at the time - maybe it was HIM!

[excoachken]

To easethrowup: Bush ignored the daily memorandum in August of 2001, where his girlfriend Condi told him of the imminent plan to fly commercial airplanes into skyscrapers. In fact, all he had to do was read the title of the daily memo. Though the Cowardly Cowboy did not feel it was important enough to even tell the general public about the threat, his Attorney General Ashcroft apparently listened well enough to stop flying on large, commercial flights. You also asked why bin Laden was not killed before 9/11. Well, you will have to ask Condi that the next time you see her. They had a 1 month leeway and did nothing to warn or prevent this attack. It was obviously more important to them and their plan for a New World Order control of Oil, that the attack occur unhindered!

[relee42]

Perfect, now let daddy set you on his knee an let you know how conservatives used this fake spy satellite and unnecessary shootdown to launder money for secret defence contractor deals. Hello, there is no paper trail!!

[lovegetpeace]

Folks,
I just spoke with my brother-in-law who works at the defense contractor Lockheed Martin-Murrietta in Santa Clara California that sell this SM-3 missile to the US military.

The manufacturing of the SM-3 missile was long outsourced to Japan, China and India.

Incidentally, cash rich China is already testing similar missiles. Russia already got it according to this same article.

[squidly8]

dragonwagon, may want to pull back on the Koolaid a little.

[talkingham]

One of the idiots on Fox yesterday said the satellite was traveling in orbit at 35,000 MPH, if that was the case it would have left Earth orbit long ago as 25,000 MPH is escape velocity.

This whole thing is another Bush admin lie and failure. Did anyone think we would miss the thing with a missile?

The failure is claiming we don''t know why it failed and then shooting it down before finding out. It should have been towed to a higher orbit by the shuttle and repaired but someone didn''t want it repaired and we will never know why.

[ivandrago]

Can you believe that China actually has the nerve to protest this after shooting down a satellite 3 time the distance from Earth? To top it off they want the data from the strike.

For people with relatively smaller genitals, they certainly have gigantic balls. Probably need to buy special underwear to cut down on the chaffing, and back strain.

[squidly8]

We can all be at ease now that the young women and men who have graduated from college with "want fries with that?" degrees have saved us from the hell storm from above. Their effective analysis and programming of the fire control system has provided a dead on hit to the fuel tank of a wayward satellite traveling at 17,000 MPH by a missile moving at 3,000 MPH after a flight of time of 3 minutes, 100+ miles above the earth''s surface.

Wahoo!

GO NAVY! Bravo Zulu!