The spy satellites that’s coming down in a few weeks has been labeled a hazard, and will be destroyed using a Navy missile sometime soon. It’s not just that if the satellite is allowed to come in on its own, large pieces could rain down on people. The bigger concern by the government, they say, is the hydrazine fuel inside. This is toxic, and if the satellite is destroyed while still in space, the fuel will disperse and be destroyed when it reenters the Earth’s atmosphere.
But what is hydrazine, anyway, and why use it if it’s toxic? Astroprof has written up a very detailed yet readable blog post about the stuff. I learned quite a bit about hydrazine from reading that.
Oh, and that crack above about the bigger concern of the government? That’s because this is a spy sat, and I don’t think it’s too suspicious to wonder out loud if their real biggest concern is secret technology falling onto foreign soil.
But to be sure, the hydrazine is a real concern, so blowing the thing up is the right decision anyway.
Also, Heavens-Above.com has a page on the satellite, with a diagram of its orbital height (it drops fast) and another showing its ground track and current position. Very cool.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
This explains a lot about the dangers of the satellite. Has DoD confirmed the use of the AEGIS SM-3?
February 16th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
They haven’t, but that’s all it could be from the Navy.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
If there was a lot of outrage when the chinese did it, there will be lots of shouts on this one too…
Oh well, I think it’s better to shoot it down than to have it fall pretty much anywhere.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
One of the more interesting things – if you can call it that – about hydrazine is that it is what can kill you if you cook certain mushrooms and don’t let it all release before you lean in for a nice, big whiff.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
And another thing – since my son is on an AEGIS-class cruiser (USS Normandy) and they have just announced a “modified at sea period” for the next few weeks – I have to wonder….
But really – he is like me. Anywhere he is, interesting things fail to happen in droves.
JC
February 16th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
One would think the most natural reason to shoot down a satellite is that the Chinese just did it, and one must keep up with the Chinese in the appearance of one’s military tech.
I mean, the press conference about the “dangerous chemical” said, you know, if someone stood right over the wreckage, for a long time, and it wasn’t windy, and no one pulled him away when he started feeling sick, and he didn’t get to hospital, ….
Hardly seems a danger worth spending millions of dollars to prevent, unless already looking for an excuse to spend it. Not that I’m overly skeptical of military press releases or anything.
February 16th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
tussock. Um… No. Read the thing about the mushrooms above. Hydrazine really is bad stuff. False morels have about 0.3% and will kill you right over your sauteuse.
JC
February 16th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Wow, I thought that groundtrack picture on Heavens Above was cool. Until I noticed that the current track is right down the line of New Zealand. Arrrrrgh! Wheres my foil hat!
Quickly – everyone into the apocalypse shelter I built in 1999! I knew it’d come in handy one day!
February 16th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
From my understanding, the difference between USA 193 and the Chinese satellite is the heights of the orbits. According to this report, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011801029.html
“… the Chinese satellite was shot down using a ground-based medium-range ballistic missile, which slammed into its target 537 miles above earth on Jan. 11.”
And then from THIS report:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080216/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle_195
“The satellite will be about 150 miles up when the shot is fired.”
So, in the case of the Chinese satellite, when it was destroyed 500+ miles up, it created up to 300,000 pieces of space debris. (Other reports suggest it was more like 150,000 pieces that are trackable.) Whereas, the USA 193 will already be in a severely decayed orbit, so alll of its debris will most likely burn up very soon after the impact.
Of course, we won’t know for sure until it happens. It would be neat to watch.
February 16th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Greg, that’s it exactly. I was at a meeting today and several folks were asking me about the satellite and what’s the difference between this and the Chinese incident. The height is the major one, we’re not creating space debris that will endanger other satellites.
February 16th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Hmmm…isn’t the point of having fuel on a satellite so that one can reposition it when its orbit begins to decay? (cue conspiracy music here)
February 16th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
[...] dumps have. If that happens to be my backyard, I’d be really ticked off. (Edit to add: The Bad Astronomer points out that Astroprof has an excellent post about hydrazine, if you want to consult [...]
February 16th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Christopher Vera says: “Hmmm…isn’t the point of having fuel on a satellite so that one can reposition it when its orbit begins to decay? (cue conspiracy music here)”
The whole reason this is happening is that the satellite failed soon after launch. I don’t know the story, but this is a dead bird. It’s fuel tanks are full and it’s completely uncontrollable. It could fall anywhere between 58 deg N and 58 S (which is just about the entire inhabited globe.
For all the CT’s whining about how much this is costing, I can imagine the opposite case since I lived through the Skylab re-entry. Everyone would be screaming about how irresponsible it is to have a big, dangerous satellite come down at random.
- Jack
February 16th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
“This is toxic, and if the satellite is destroyed while still in space, the fuel will disperse and be destroyed when it reenters the Earth’s atmosphere.”
That’s what I don’t understand…If the fuel disperses, and has a flash point of only 38 degrees Celsius, why are we worried that it will even hit the ground? N2 and H2 aren’t huge concerns…
February 16th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
@ Cameron
From the Astroprof’s page :
“…hydrazine is so reactive, volatile, and with such a low flash point, that I think that most of the debris is probably cleansed in passing through the high heat of burn up in the atmosphere. But, apparently at least some of the hydrazine tanks from the Columbia [accident] survived passage through Earth’s atmosphere during reentry, so it is quite likely that the same could happen for USA-193.”
Comes down to risk I guess – there is a risk that it will come down and someone will come into contact with it. Very low risk,but you never can tell with this stuff.
February 16th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I think both tussock and Astroprof are right. The hydrazine gives us a nice excuse to test our anti-missle system, showing some muscle to China and maybe make things here on Earth safer from the potential hydrazine spill at the same time. Not too bad a deal.
I’d -LOVE- to be watching it, but the Pacific fleet isn’t particularly near Virginia…
Rich
February 17th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Re: Hydrazine
As a member of the USAF, my personal knowledge of hydrazine relates to its use to power the Emergency Power Unit of F-16’s. It is a Carcinogenic fuel, but beyond that I fail to see the big deal with it. To be absolutely honest, we don’t even get hazardous duty pay to be potentially exposed to it daily(outside of Fuels specialists who deal with plenty more dangers than that).
As a skeptical member of society, I too feel that this “Hydrazine danger” is being used as a media excuse to wash the true concerns away. Here is a list of concerns greater than hydrazine exposure regarding this event.
1) Unpredictable crash site
-difficulty in prepositioning a recovery team
-potential of impact in major metropolitan center
-potential of impact to environment from whatever fuel this really is using
2) Intelligence concerns
-easy reverse engineer to get always on access to us intelligence system
-some other tech that we don’t want anyone else knowing we are using against them?
3)other concerns
-is it really hydrazine powered?
–potential of radioisotope thermoelectric generator instead?
-media circus being used to publicly flex the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System?
-is use of ABMDS the best solution?
–potential ring of low orbit space trash like what came from the china ASAT test last year?
February 17th, 2008 at 2:22 am
@Vera-
Yes, one of the reasons this satellite had the fuel aboard was too reposition it. However, this particular satellite had a total failure of all electrical power right after launch in late 2006. No radio, no computer, no nothing. It’s dead, and has been dead for over a year. The fuel tanks are full because it’s unable to fire any thrusters.
February 17th, 2008 at 4:12 am
yeehh… I was quite sure this whole USA-193 thing was just an excuse to show the finger to China.
The whole …. big as a bus… doomsday satellite coming down to earth in a random place… information leaked into the sensationalist media + brand new modified missile = good reason for a weapons test.
I usually do not like conspiracies… but this story has to many plot holes to be ignored.
February 17th, 2008 at 6:11 am
@Danezia: Plot holes? I don’t see any plot holes.
It’s pretty easy to understand, actually.
1.- Satellite going down to Earth. (And is not a doomsday satellite, nor is the size of a bus. I believe it’s a little bigger than a minivan).
2.- The info WAS covered by AP (Which BA already said that it was worth nothing), but came from a very reliable source. Which one? The Department of Defense of the United States. They GAVE a press conference a few hours after BA’s blog post.
3.- “Good reason for a weapon test”. What weapon test? Everything points towards an AEGIS SM-3 with a modified chip in order to recognize better the satellite as a target. This stuff has been used already, it’s a missile used in basically two purposes:
A) Interception
B) Interception of moving objects.
The SM-3 can hit rockets designed to evade things like the SM-3. It’s nothing new.
4.- The only risk here is:
A) Satellite falling in a populated area (Odds are really, really low, considering that 75% of the Earth is Water, and the rest is not actually populates, counting deserts, fields, etc, the odds of hitting a populated area is less that 10%)
B) Hydrazine contaminating a section of the Earth (That’s where the problem is, the hydrazine may or may not survive re-entry, that’s why they can’t take any risks).
C) And of course, “Secret Technology landing on Russian territory” or something similar.
I can’t see where the conspiracy is.
February 17th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Both the Soviet Union and the USA demonstrated working, if crude, ASAT (antisatellite) weapons; the USA once in c.1985, in response to earlier Soviet test(s?). The Wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon
claims the USA program was cancelled a few years later.
Whilst it’s possible Cheney and Bush II might be trying to send a signal in response to China’s recent test, the claim that the forthcoming USA action is simply an attempt to safely deorbit a large, out-of-control, sensitive satellite carrying a considerable(?) amount of highly hazardous material is very plausible.
February 17th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Of course, this will (undirectly) show off USA’S anti-missile system and show off to China.
But what matters here, is the Hydrazine. I can’t take the risk of getting blind if a drop of Hydrazine falls into my eye (If that’s the case, then I’m very, VERY unlucky).
February 17th, 2008 at 7:48 am
I love the smell of Hydrazine in the morning….
February 17th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Hydrazine has been used in satellites since the 1950s. The space shuttle uses it for maneuvering thrusters. Satellites with large quantities of hydrazine have been re-entering the atmosphere for decades. The claimed issues with hydrazine are completely bogus.
The concern of “sensitive technologies” is also bogus. Anything useful or sensitive will be burned up. The satellite isn’t that big compared to other stuff launched and re-entered. For example it’s far smaller than the Shuttle and look at how much recognizable stuff was found it broke up over Texas *at low altitude*.
Again evidence of the hydrazine fraud: how much hydrazine was spewed out in the Texas Shuttle impact? Outside of a few items to a radius of 25-50 feet of unsafe zone, none? So a $100M intercept must be used? Get real!
The sole reason for “needing” to shoot it down is to test terminal intercept phase ASAT technology.
BTW, SDI was never shut down in the late 1980s – it simply became a black and/or diversion-funded project. You know, like what’s happening today with Iraq only now it’s being done in the open (Congress cuts off funding but the president simply takes from another accounting bucket in direct violation of the law).
Former “Rocket Scientist”
February 17th, 2008 at 9:57 am
From Heavens-Above:
“USA 193 is large and is now in a very low orbit, so it should be quite bright and easy to see with the unaided eye. Click here for predictions for your location.”
When it is visible, it will be quite bright. But to be visible, the observer must be in twilight and the satellite must be in sunlight. So, because it is so low, visibility is quite rare. However, evening visibility for observers north of latitude 30 degrees is now beginning. The current orbital elements had a drag term that was too low. So USA 193 will be over 1 minute early until H-A picks up the new elements (which have epoch day 48 = Feb. 17 UT).
February 17th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Like many readers, I’m not usually much of a conspiracy theorist, but this one got me wondering from the start. We want to test our asat capabilities, but the way the whole world got so pixxed-off at the Chinese for shooting down a satalite, it would be politically incorrect on a global scale to overtly do it ourselves. So, we shoot off a super-secret spy satellite that’s really nothing but a clay pigeon for the world’s biggest skeet shoot. They could even pay for the whole project with money allocated for the fancy super-secret spy stuff that supposedly went into the thing in the first place.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Columbia may have had similar tanks that survived, but Columbia was a 50 tonne Orbiter covered in carbon-carbon and aerogel tiles, while this is (supposedly) a 5 tonne satellite with no heat shielding whatsoever. I don’t think the two cases are even close to comparable. 5 tonne satellites deorbit all the time without raining doom (or hydrazine, or nitrogen tetroxide) upon us.
February 17th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
How about doing some research and then posting an opinion, for a change? For those who missed the DoD PC a full transcript was made available hours later, in which it says clearly, for example: “We’re using the Standard Missile 3, well understood. It has the ability to get up just beyond the atmosphere, so it has the kinetic energy to be able to reach this satellite as it prepares to reenter.” And later it says that “we’ve spent about three weeks in modification to software” of the SM3.
Further details on the ships probably involved and the cost of the operation were soon revealed by ABC and CNN. The question about the DoD’s ‘true motive’ may be still somewhat in the air (with few having noted that NASA Administrator Griffin was at the DoD briefing and seconded everything the military guys said), but many of the technical details have long been addressed.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
SDI was never shut down in the late 1980s
No-one said it was. What was said is the USA ASAT program — which never was part of SDI (an ABM program, not an ASAT program) — was (apparently) shut down.
The claims about the Hydrazine and suspicions about sensitive parts are quite plausible. Reentering small bits and pieces are virtually certain to burn up. The probably of something undesirable surviving the uncontrolled reentry of a single much larger object must be higher. Apparently, someone thinks (or at least is paranoid enough to think (recall this is a spooks satellite — those guys are paid to be paranoid)) that the odds of something surviving are high enough to “give it a shot”.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I just hope the missile doesn’t miss. That would be really embarrassing.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
They should have just let it fall. Reverse engineering something like that would be like reverse engineering Humpty Dumpty (worse actually), it would be an incredible mess. A bit of toxic waste that is self cleansing no big deal, they are like my mom worry too much and unlike my mom spending other people’s money. As Homer Simpson might say 70% chance of falling in ocean, I like those odds.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Hey, I’m learning hydrazine for college right now. Its just a typical double ammonia molecule. You can use it to test for aldehydes and ketones. And yeah, its highly toxic.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:31 am
I am not sure that no debris will be created – perhaps not as many as in the chinese incident, but the energy released in the explosion could well shoot smaller fragments in higher orbits.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Conspiracies, hydrazine, and space debris aside, this missile launch is an incredible waste of resources.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Gonzo – actually, we call this a USE of resources. A waste is when, after a goodly number of years, you “offload through the muzzle” about sixty of these things – such as was done when the TALOS missle system went out of commission and the ship on which I once served tossed that number into the ocean – at the cost of some untold millions apiece.
I understand that those on board had quite a show though – two a minute for about half an hour or so. That must have been some display.
JC
February 18th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I don’t generally work on military spacecraft. Civilian craft mostly use hydrazine for propellant for orbit stabilization and attitude stabilization. Its use around a telescope would be minimized to prevent contamination. Most civilian craft now rely on magnetic torquer bars for attitude control wheel unloading. Torquers are a bit slower than a hydrazine burst and may be too slow for military purposes.
Although there is a hydrazine fuel cell, I believe it produces a waste that has to go somewhere. Not usually something you want floating around a telescope. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that military craft use fuel cells even though there’s plenty of free sunlight. They could use both — the military belt and suspenders approach.
I think the real reason is to prevent the satellite from falling into the wrong hands. It isn’t so much a question of being able to reverse engineer it to reproduce it. Instead someone could reverse engineering it to learn its capabilities and limitations. It’s amazing what can be deduced from what appears to be a pile of junk. A short list: communication frequencies, attitude stability, telescope imaging capabilities, even encryption methodology. It all depends on what survived the re-entry. If nothing else it could be used to confirm hypotheses about capabilities and indicate avenues for further “research.” I’m sure this is more of a concern than any possible biohazard.
These missions tend to use highly elliptical, retrograde, polar orbits to maximize time over target. As such, any debris would pretty much follow the same orbit. These orbits are used mostly be the military. Some civilian craft such as Landsat and weather observers share but the debris would be mostly a problem only to the military.
I worked in intelligence back in the 70s and my current job requires varying levels of clearance depending upon the project. The thing to keep in mind is that the military rarely divulges more than half truths.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:02 am
We want to test our asat capabilities, but the way the whole world got so pixxed-off at the Chinese for shooting down a satalite, it would be politically incorrect on a global scale to overtly do it ourselves. So, we shoot off a super-secret spy satellite that’s really nothing but a clay pigeon for the world’s biggest skeet shoot.
If you wanted to come up with a cover story for an ASAT test or demonstration, why would you chose the idea of a secret spy satellite, especially if you’re going to use the “excuse” of its toxic fuel load? Why not claim the target is something less intrinsically controversial? Do you think that the idea of the USA shooting down a new secret spy satellite able to image almost anywhere in the inhabited world is going to be better received than the idea of the USA shooting down a satellite in the first place?
First rule of cover-ups: never chose a cover story that makes you look worse than the truth would.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
By the way, there is now strong evidence that the first rocket will be fired on Feb. 21 around 3:30 UTC.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Here’s an idea – why not let the Chinese shoot it down instead – they get to test again & they’ve shown the can get the job done.
The US have their latest rogue military scheme knocked out in a nice big bang.
The world as a whole is saved from yet another needless hazard created by the wasteful, polluting war-mongering US military-industrial complex.
Everyone’s happy!
(Well, except for all the patriotic scoundrels who’ll no doubt be flaming me as soon as this goes up…
)
February 19th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Or an alternative solution – not much use in this specific case right now but helpful in preventing this sorta thing happening again :
Stop spying on, bullying and threatening other nations that disagree with you America!
Simple really.
Oh & end the counter-productive doomed occupations of Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan & impeach Bush the Mad for war crimes along with his neo-con puppet-masters while you’re at it!
February 20th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
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