* Astronomy

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Home -> Astronomy News -> Mission News -> NRO_L-21 Launch
Post Info TOPIC: NRO_L-21 Launch
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: NRO_L-21 Launch
Permalink  
 

USA-193, also known as NRO launch 21 (NROL-21 or simply L-21), was an American military spy satellite launched on December 14, 2006.

Spoiler



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

USA-193, also known as NRO launch 21 (NROL-21 or simply L-21), was an American military spy satellite launched on December 14, 2006. It was the first launch conducted by the United Launch Alliance. Owned by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the craft's precise function and purpose were classified.
The satellite malfunctioned shortly after deployment, and was intentionally destroyed 14 months later on February 21, 2008, by a modified, $9.5 million SM-3 missile fired from the warship USS Lake Erie, stationed west of Hawaii.
Read more



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: Spy satellite re-entry
Permalink  
 

The U.S. Navy's February missile shoot down of a spy satellite was unnecessary, a Harvard scientist and former NASA employee said.
Yousaf Butt filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for the National Air and Space Agency's re-entry threat analysis from the disabled USA-193 satellite. His conclusions contradict the government's official explanation that the satellite's hydrazine fuel tank posed a health hazard.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: NRO_L-21 Launch
Permalink  
 

The shooting apart of a crippled U.S. spy satellite last month created no significant new space debris, with all but small bits burning on re-entry to the atmosphere, the mission commander said on Wednesday.
Read more

Ed ~ Not quite what i would have said

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

UPDATE:
NORAD released a few orbital elements of USA 193 satellite debris, resulting from the February 21st missile interception.
And judging from the orbital elements, the impact was a lot more violent than was predicted by the US military.
Most of the debris lost altitude fairly rapidly, and burned up within two or three orbits, but some debris was indeed blasted into higher and dangerous orbits, with over 85 large pieces that were tracked (numbered from 32502 to 32587).
Most will orbit for a over a month or longer.

Example

Debris number 32685.
Period 92.77
Incl. 57.63
Apogee 588
Perigee 232

USA 193 DEB
1 32685U 06057FL  08079.76042715  .00188219  18464-4  62956-3 0   233
2 32685 057.6300 267.6099 0260379 085.6034 277.4748 15.52854334  3528


__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
USA 193
Permalink  
 

19 Feb 2008 briefing to State leaders on the shoot down of a United States spy satellite over US territory, written at the For Official Use Only level. Powerpoint presentation by DHS/FEMA. The file has been converted to PDF format by Wikileaks. Title "Space Object Rentry State Leadership Briefing DHS/FEMA region IX." Forensic analysis of the document meta data, which Wikileaks has had to remove to protect the source, leads us to say with high confidence that the document is genuine.

...the document states that the hydrazine tank will fragment, releasing the hydrazine in space, and that 99% of the debris is expected to fall into Earth's atmosphere within one week. The footprint of this debris is described within the document as typically being 10 to 25 miles wide and 100 to 1,000 miles long.

Source

usa193
Expand (82kb, 640 x 320)

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: NRO_L-21 Launch
Permalink  
 

Spy Satellite shot down footage from launch to hit



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

A network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the earth's atmosphere.  
At approximately 10:26 p.m. EST today, a U.S. Navy AEGIS warship,  the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometres (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it travelled in space at more than 17,000 mph. USS Decatur (DDG-73) and USS Russell (DDG-59) were also part of the task force.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
USA 193
Permalink  
 

It's a measure of how peacefully human beings have used space in the 50-plus years we've been travelling there that we're a whole lot better at putting things into orbit than we are at blowing them back out. That, of course, is a function of practice. Thousands of pieces of machinery have been lofted into space since the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and almost all of them have either tumbled back down on their own or simply remained in orbit.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: NRO_L-21 Launch
Permalink  
 

The US has successfully struck a disabled spy satellite with a missile fired from a warship in waters west of Hawaii, military officials say.
Military operatives had only a 10-second window to hit the satellite - USA 193 - which lost control shortly after it was launched in December 2006.

Read more

__________________
1 2 3 … 5  >  Last»  | Page of 5  sorted by
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.
Home -> Astronomy News -> Mission News -> NRO_L-21 Launch


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse 		Powered by ActiveBoard