WASHINGTON - A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in late February or early March, government officials said Saturday.

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The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret. It was not clear how long ago the satellite lost power, or under what circumstances.

"Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, when asked about the situation after it was disclosed by other officials. "Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause."

He would not comment on whether it is possible for the satellite to perhaps be shot down by a missile. He said it would be inappropriate to discuss any specifics at this time.

A senior government official said that lawmakers and other nations are being kept apprised of the situation.

The spacecraft contains hydrazine — which is rocket fuel — according to a government official who was not authorized to speak publicly but spoke on condition of anonymity. Hydrazine, a colorless liquid with an ammonia-like odor, is a toxic chemical and can cause harm to anyone who contacts it.

Such an uncontrolled re-entry could risk exposure of U.S. secrets, said John Pike, a defense and intelligence expert. Spy satellites typically are disposed of through a controlled re-entry into the ocean so that no one else can access the spacecraft, he said.

Pike also said it's not likely the threat from the satellite could be eliminated by shooting it down with a missile, because that would create debris that would then re-enter the atmosphere and burn up or hit the ground.

Pike, director of the defense research group GlobalSecurity.org, estimated that the spacecraft weighs about 20,000 pounds and is the size of a small bus. He said the satellite would create 10 times less debris than the Columbia space shuttle crash in 2003. Satellites have natural decay periods, and it's possible this one died as long as a year ago and is just now getting ready to re-enter the atmosphere, he said.

Jeffrey Richelson, a senior fellow with the National Security Archive, said the spacecraft likely is a photo reconnaissance satellite. Such eyes in the sky are used to gather visual information from space about adversarial governments and terror groups, including construction at suspected nuclear sites or militant training camps. The satellites also can be used to survey damage from hurricanes, fires and other natural disasters.

The largest uncontrolled re-entry by a NASA spacecraft was Skylab, the 78-ton abandoned space station that fell from orbit in 1979. Its debris dropped harmlessly into the Indian Ocean and across a remote section of western Australia.

In 2000, NASA engineers successfully directed a safe de-orbit of the 17-ton Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, using rockets aboard the satellite to bring it down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.

In 2002, officials believe debris from a 7,000-pound science satellite smacked into the Earth's atmosphere and rained down over the Persian Gulf, a few thousand miles from where they first predicted it would plummet.

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Associated Press writers Pamela Hess and Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.

I suggest, to destroy that thing with missiles.. anything that is in space should stay in space..

I think this doomsday threads are becoming a fashion.

I wonder how well this would work:
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/milita...lips/index.html

Don't you just love the media's portrayals and extensive discussions of the threats inherent in something they know absolutely nothing about?
A satellite has lost its power and it's orbit is decaying. That's it.

The rest of the article is a discussion of possibilities based upon nothing.

No one knows the things orbit, save the people who are tracking it.
They know exactly where its heading and as time goes on, will be able to put a very good estimate on it's re-entry, and debris path.

And as to it being possibly shot down by a missile?

One has to wonder...how does one shoot down an orbiting satellite with a missile and what effect will that have? You break up the satellite into a bunch of parts, all of which are going to re-enter the atmosphere all over the place..if you could actually get a missile to intercept it.

Our systems are designed to intercept ballistic missiles in boost phase or in ballistic flight...none of them are designed to go get an orbiting vehicle.
One might use an intercept to destroy it after re-entry, but...

With a bunch of pieces screaming across the upper atmosphere...which one do you go for?

The discussion is ridiculous.

What will happen is when the time comes, the appropriate agency will place notices regrding it's path, as well as warning to any persons who may be in the path of potential falling debris not to touch anything that may fall to the ground...due to the potential of residual hydrazine, etc. being on the parts. Most of that fuel will go poof upon re-entry heating and break up, but it will be wise to be prudent about having curiosity seekers going around handling parts.


Remember Columbia?
200,000 lbs + of manned space vehicle, full of toxic fuels, evaporating without warning, right over populated areas of the south central U.S. Was anyone harmed by falling debris? This satellite is 1/10 the size of Columbia.

It's just silly to discuss it until some real information is known about it. The odds of disaster are very slim.

I believe the Chinese have successfully blown up a satellite in orbit before. So it's obviously possible at least.




http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/18/c...sile/index.html

Skylab came down, and we survived

If I'm not here by March, it crashed in to me.

Yes, but that wasn't "shooting down" an orbiting satellite, and it contributed a whole bunch of space debris (you can't actually shoot down an orbiting satellite...you merely create a whole bunch of orbiting satellites, which is a no-go from the point of future safety), is likely in violation of use-of-space treaties, and would, if used on this particular satellite we're talking about, result in a rain of space particles re-entering the atmosphere all over the place.

We'll keep an eye on you, Raptor!

Maybe the satellite has something else on it warheads or something to create a lil bit more of a threat.WHo knows anymore lol

lol We would find out the hard way

lol thats what im sayin although they wouldnt go off the material in it would be alot more threatening then the normal stuff Lol

It annoys me.

As you said let the guys at space centers do their job, wich is predict it's deorbit path and impact area, then inform of it.

The media..... I have a lot to say about the media.

Unless the satellite was powered by an RTG (radioactive thermal generator) I find it very unlikely that any satellite deorbiting would cause much damage. And even if there was an RTG, the lunar module from apollo 13 entered our atmosphere with an RTG aboard, and the generator was tough enough that it didnt crack open (its laying somwhere on the bottom of the pacific ocean right now).

Also, Skylab, the huge US space station, deorbited over Western Australia and caused no damage. A few pieces rained down onto some guy's roof and he got a prize that some newspaper had out for the person who found the first pieces. Australia also tried to fine the US government $400 for littering, haha...

The problem is this thing is not in space. They couldn't get it there and that's why it is coming down. Some rockets failed to fire and push it out to an orbit. Believe me that if they shoot that thing down, there would be so much more to worry about. The only option now is to let it fall.



It is a huge thing that has a lot of fuel. No matter where it hits, there is going to be problems. That thing cannot be controlled, so a controlled-entry is out of the question. If it hits in the ocean, it will cause a slow fuel leak at the bottom of the ocean. The fish won't like that!

If it hits land . . . the people around there won't care; they'll be gone! The following years, the toxicity of that fuel blowing in the wind all over the world will be seen in people who have lung problems, skin problems, etc.

This is what it would look like if they shot it down:

http://www.outtahear.com/beyond_updates/UF...EY%20circle.mpg

No gregg...the only rerason it's falling from orbit is because it's in space. It was placed there long ago and now she's coming down because her power is gone and she can't adjust her orbit anymore...





That's the only option.



I'm sure the concerned fish are being informed of the situation and shall take appropriate steps.

...you're assuming that fuel will be left after re-entry...rather than nondescript bits of spacecraft. I think you are overblowing the situation a wee bit...



Now you have ascended into utter nonsense.
The fish thing was bad enough, but this?




No gregg...that's what it will look like when it re-enters all by itself.
We can't shoot down an orbiting craft, and we certainly don't need to when nature's going to break it into tiny bits all by itself.

If you're really being serious here, I'd advise you not to post anymore and start your prayers, because in about 9 hours, that astreroid (2007 TU24) is going to bend the magnetosphere and cause all sorts of psychological effects!

DO WHAT, NOW? I just do not know how to handle uninformed idiom makers.

What's an idiom? Oh I'm right. MID it has been wonderful exchanging dialogue with you.

Lol.........get the tinfoil hats.



P.S. What's strange is people around here actually believes so..., uninformed society.

If you're the kind inclined to worry, here's a real hand-wringer for you: Sometime as early as February, 7,000 lbs. of flaming metal are going to start raining out of the sky, and nobody can say exactly where on Earth it's going to happen. The upside is, there's almost no rational reason you should give it a second thought.The approaching fireball of debris comes to us courtesy of an unnamed U.S. spy satellite launched in December 2006, which reached orbit perfectly well, but then suffered a breakdown that caused ground controllers to lose communication with it. "It's not necessarily dead, but it's deaf," John McDowell, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics unhelpfully told The New York Times. A deaf satellite, after all, is almost as bad as a dead satellite, when it comes to telling it to fire its thrusters so that it can stay in orbit, or at least come down in a safe place like the middle of the ocean. Without communications, the satellite becomes a falling cannonball colliding with the atmosphere at 17,500 mph.

That very atmosphere, however, helps ensure that we're in very little danger from being struck by this craft or any other incoming junk. Even billions of years after the formation of the solar system, space is still something of a shooting gallery, with meteors careening everywhere. The Earth is a very fat, very slow target for such flying rubble, but the high speed of the approaching rocks and the density of the planet's air cause anything but the biggest pieces of debris to burn up on their way down, producing nothing more dangerous than shooting stars.

That's not to say we're at zero risk from space junk. In the 50 years since the launch of Sputnik, the world's first satellite, and Explorer I, America's first satellite, rocket builders from all over the world have fired so much heavy hardware into space that the planet is now surrounded by a belt of litter consisting of some 10,000 objects four inches or more in diameter and many tens of thousands of smaller ones. Taken together, they're estimated to represent more than 900,000 lbs. of flying — and possibly falling — rubbish.

Read More Here

...someday, perhaps that will be explained...

i think the major concern over this is the technology, as well as any possible nuclear parts.

Watch Video Here

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and propulsion and could hit the Earth in late February or March, government officials said Saturday.


A senior government official says lawmakers and other nations are being kept apprised of the situation.

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret.

"Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

"Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause." Watch why the bus-sized satellite is causing concern »

He would not comment on whether it is possible for the satellite to be perhaps shot down by a missile. He said it would be inappropriate to discuss any specifics at this time.

A senior government official said that lawmakers and other nations are being kept apprised of the situation.


The largest uncontrolled re-entry by a NASA spacecraft was Skylab, the 78-ton abandoned space station that fell from orbit in 1979. Its debris dropped harmlessly into the Indian Ocean and across a remote section of western Australia.


In 2000, NASA engineers successfully directed a safe de-orbit of the 17-ton Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, using rockets aboard the satellite to bring it down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.

In 2002, officials believe debris from a 7,000-pound science satellite smacked into the Earth's atmosphere and rained down over the Persian Gulf, a few thousand miles from where they first predicted it would plummet. E-mail to a friend

Link

Ghost:

You have posted essentially the same information three times...


Are you worried about this?

Any idea when it might be hitting the earth.

It's in the first sentence of Ghost ship's article:



Silly you!

LoL. No, but your right. After reading that last article after posting it i realised my error. I glanced it, saw a slight variance and decided that another angle on it had been found. I wont do this again.

No problem at all.
Glad you're not worried.

I guess it should suffice to say that the media will do everything they can to talk about something for which they have little or no information. They tend to create problems where there are none in so many cases...
There's a relatively substantial military applications satellite on orbit that has "lost its sauce". It's deteriorating on orbit and will eventually enter the atmosphere and burn up.
Its orbit is unknown to all but those who operate the vehicle. They're paying very close attention all the time.
When they refine its entry point, which won't be until it's getting really close, they will advise anyone that might be in the path of any potential falling debris.

About all that can be done is to advise people in the area to remain in their homes for the half hour or so window in which debris might make contact with the ground.

The odds of an occurance wherein someone is damaged or hurt by such a thing are incredibly slim. Really really small. Nonetheless, the possibility is there, the larger the vehicle, the more the possibility.

That's about all that can be said about it.

I wonder if it has hit ground yet? The orbiting satellites that we put around this earth, are they in space? What I mean is are they outside any influence by the earth? The story I got was that they were trying to launch this satellite into orbit and the final push failed and with that failure of that system the dropoff of the stage for the final push exposes the controlling rockets didn't happen so they can't control it coming back down.

Ohh, March when the wind blows!

Nope...not yet.




Not really. Virtually nothing on orbit is unaffected by the Earth. There are what are called perturbations caused by third bodies (like the Sun and the Moon), by the irregularity of the Earth's shape and mass distribution, and from solar radiation and atmospheric drag. Just about any satellite in an orbit below around 375 statute miles will have some atmospheric drag factor applied to it. Even the ISS and Shuttle require adjustments from time to time.

These things are in "space" however.



It doesn't seem very likely that the initial orbit insertion failed.
Generally speaking, if boost fails, the vehicle comes back down in relatively short order. This satellite's been up there for a while, and will continue to be so for weeks. One would have to assume that it was placed in a fair orbit intitially.

My understanding is that communications (command acceptance by the satellite) has been disabled somehow, but that it had been working. The ground cannot radio commands to the satellite (it's deaf, in other words). Thus, it cannot receive instructions to execute the burns required to keep its orbit stable, and thus, it will deteriorate and re-enter eventually. Being that it's a secret satellite, I certainly don't know what its orbit is, or much else about it.