This seems like a pretty big exclusion area for the satellite shot on Thursday. Is it going to disrupt airlanes? I'd be pretty annoyed if my trans-Pacific flight was delayed for it.
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David Summers wrote:
What do you think about the "safeguarding technology" angle? Is there a real risk that a "perfect" re-entry would allow some sensitive instruments to make it to the ground?
It seems to me like some delicate instruments sitting on top of a tank of monopropellant going into the blast furnace of re-entry would not need much in the way of a self destruct... perhaps they have discovered unobtanium, and are building spy sats out of it!
It looks like they choose the exclusion area so that the intercept attempt will be within the coverage of the Kaena Point radar and the Maui Space Surveillance Site (MSSS) optical sensors. It might also be within the coverage of the radars at Kwajalein. There are a lot of interesting sensors at MSSS including the twin 1.2 meter IR telescope (formerly known as MOTIF) capable of working during daylight hours.
"I'd be pretty annoyed if my trans-Pacific flight was delayed for it."
I'd be even more annoyed if my trans-Pacific flight went into the drink because someone dropped some decimal places and the exclusion area wasn't big enough to cover their lack of precision.
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This page contains a single entry by Rand Simberg published on February 19, 2008 9:05 AM.
What do you think about the "safeguarding technology" angle? Is there a real risk that a "perfect" re-entry would allow some sensitive instruments to make it to the ground?
It seems to me like some delicate instruments sitting on top of a tank of monopropellant going into the blast furnace of re-entry would not need much in the way of a self destruct... perhaps they have discovered unobtanium, and are building spy sats out of it!
A good discussion...
http://mit.edu/stgs/pdfs/Forden_Preliminary_analysis_USA_193_Shoot_down.pdf
It looks like they choose the exclusion area so that the intercept attempt will be within the coverage of the Kaena Point radar and the Maui Space Surveillance Site (MSSS) optical sensors. It might also be within the coverage of the radars at Kwajalein. There are a lot of interesting sensors at MSSS including the twin 1.2 meter IR telescope (formerly known as MOTIF) capable of working during daylight hours.
"I'd be pretty annoyed if my trans-Pacific flight was delayed for it."
I'd be even more annoyed if my trans-Pacific flight went into the drink because someone dropped some decimal places and the exclusion area wasn't big enough to cover their lack of precision.
Sometimes the tanks make it back down:
http://www.space.com/news/raining_boosters_000510.html