After the US Navy’s recent successful shoot down of an errant spy satellite, a number of new details have begun to emerge. These details demonstrate that there’s still a lot to be taken into account when attempting such a feat. “We didn’t predict an explosion,” says Rear Adm. Brad Hicks, U.S. Navy manager of the Aegis air and space defense program. “But the hydrazine tank did burn for tens of seconds. [The impact] also created smaller pieces than we had predicted. What’s still up there [is so small that] it is not showing up in the debris field.
“There were unexpected obstacles. “[The dead satellite] was not stable,” Hicks says. “It was rolling and tumbling and [its gyration] wasn’t always the same from one orbit to another, which added to the technical challenge. We tried for six weeks to see what was predictable about what it was doing each orbit, and we just couldn’t do it.”
As a result, gathering radar and infrared information on the satellite was crucial and the results are considered a huge incentive to rapidly integrate the nation’s sensors that are capable of characterizing objects in space.
But now that the shootdown has been done once, the capability – which took six weeks to put together – possibly could be duplicated even faster. While U.S. officials say it was a one-time event, they also say they learned a lot that might not have to be repeated for a second anti-satellite (ASAT) mission.
“The shot,” as the Pentagon called the $100 million operation conducted on February 20, came immediately after Russia and China put forward a detailed, but flawed, proposal for a treaty to ban space weapons at the United Nations. In response, the United States immediately reaffirmed its unwillingness to participate in any arms control accord covering space.
It’s true that USA 193 was larger than any strategic re-entry vehicle, was traveling along a predicted path and came without any accompanying decoys. In this sense “the shot” wasn’t a test of the combat capabilities of the SM-3 per se but ballistic missile defense tests, especially initially, are highly idealized and the shooting down of the satellite was an important test of the identification, tracking, and targeting systems. This means that these systems could be combined with the even more capable ground based mid-course interceptor system in an anti-satellite missile role.
The noted space and missile analyst John Pike has also surmised (see “Nations to take notice of US satellite destruction”) that the test also demonstrates a theoretical capability to intercept Chinese submarine launched ballistic missiles using the SM-3. “China is continuously following closely the possible harm caused by the U.S. action to outer-space security and relevant countries,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao at a news conference in Beijing following the shooting.
