Satellite Shot Revives Concerns

WASHINGTON –A lifeless satellite targeted for destruction by the United States has raised new concerns about the vast array of space debris – ranging from old rocket bodies to abandoned astronaut tools – that hurtle though the skies at thousands of miles an hour.

Since the Soviets launched Sputnik as the first satellite on Oct. 4, 1957, space has evolved into a cosmic junkyard. The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is now tracking more than 18,000 manmade objects, including an estimated 850 functioning satellites, the international space station and debris from rocket launches dating to the dawn of the space era.

That tally reflects a 30 percent increase in the past 13 months, in large part because of debris created after the Chinese destroyed one of their satellites with a missile in 2007, said the center’s director, Col. Stephen Whiting.

President Bush has ordered the Navy to try to bring down the disabled spy satellite, which lost control after its computer failed almost immediately after its launch in 2006. Mr. Bush took the unprecedented decision out of fear that 1,000 pounds of highly toxic satellite fuel could endanger populous areas, military officials said.

Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that a Navy cruiser would try to hit the satellite with a Standard Missile 3, which is designed to bring down ballistic missiles.

Government officials and many space experts say that the satellite would be low enough so that debris from the blast would be destroyed almost immediately in the Earth’s atmosphere. But some critics worry that the explosion could propel some debris upward into the path of the international space station.

In addition to the hundreds of functional satellites and the space station the skies are cluttered with nonfunctional spacecraft; old space parts; an array of other debris such as paint flakes, nuts and bolts; and abandoned paraphernalia from astronauts, including tools and gloves.

Given their blinding speed, even diminutive items can pack a wallop. Colliding with a 1-centimeter-sized aluminum sphere traveling at 22,320 mph would be like getting hit with a 60-pound safe going 60 mph, NASA says.

Though most objects burn up when re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, a few large items have made it all the way to the surface. Parts from Delta II rockets, weighing more than 500 pounds, fell to Earth in Texas and in Cape Town, South Africa, between 1997 and 2000.

China’s controversial destruction of one of its weather satellites on Jan. 11, 2007, spread additional space debris and raised fears in the United States that China was preparing weapons that could take down U.S. satellites. It was the first such destruction of a satellite since the anti-satellite tests that the United States and the Soviet Union conducted in the 1980s during the Cold War.

The Chinese test was in the upper ranges of the lower Earth orbit – which reaches up to 1,242 miles – and it scattered debris that will threaten space assets for more than 20 years, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service.

U.S. officials say they see no chance for a similar debris spread from the impending U.S. shoot-down because most fragments will burn up within days, the military says.

Originally published by McClatchy Newspapers.

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