Navy Ducks Sat Shootdown Redo

The U.S. Navy marshaled its resources quickly to shoot down a broken satellite recently, but there are no plans to stay ready for a repeat performance, a senior Navy official said Wednesday.

When the U.S. government decided that the falling spy satellite posed a risk, missile defense officials assembled a takedown plan within weeks. It worked -- last month, the Pentagon smacked the satellite out of the sky and demolished the bird's hydrazine fuel tank, which the military officials said could have survived re-entry and spilled its poisonous cargo.

Despite this success, the Missile Defense Agency ducked when asked whether it could spring into action faster for a repeat performance. It would depend on too many technical specifics to say, said Rear Adm. Alan "Brad" Hicks, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense program manager, at a Navy League press conference.

He said there's no further work on the concept because last month's shootdown was a one-time event, so there's no active requirement for the technology to work against satellites on an ongoing basis.

"It is not a core mission. It is not a capability out there for us to use," Hicks said.

The U.S. Navy's satellite shootdown cost around $90 million, he said. That's not including additional costs for sensors, engineers and other support that isn't factored into the initial ballpark estimate.

-- Rebecca Christie

No More Hydrazine

The Pentagon just put out a release saying "debris analysis" indicated the SM III hit on that wayard spy satellite had done its job...

"...officials are confident the missile intercept and destruction of a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite, achieved the objective of destroying the hydrazine tank and reducing, if not eliminating, the risk to people on Earth from the hazardous chemical.

"By all accounts this was a successful mission. From the debris analysis, we have a high degree of confidence the satellite's fuel tank was destroyed and the hydrazine has been dissipated," said Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Now, that's interesting...but...(queue up the conspiracy theory montage here...) I'm wondering A.) just how did they do a debris analysis when it either burned up in the atmosphere or is still floating in suborbital space, and B.) what exactly does "reducing, if not eliminating, the risk to people on Earth from the hazardous chemical" mean? It's either gone, or it's not gone...Which is it?

Anyway, I think this whole satellite shootdown was a high-profile test of the ABM architecture, and we'll have to wait and see when the brass starts to testify on Capitol Hill over next year's funding outlay for the Missile Defense Agency if they start using this "one off" event as a rallying cry for more ABM money.

-- Christian

Navy 1, Hydrazine tank 0

The lead story at Military.com covers the Navy's shoot down of the errant spy satellite and by all indications, it appears the shot went off without a hitch. Here's the AP video news coverage:

Noteworthy is the fact that the missile didn't have a warhead. Now whether it was about the hydrazine or the possible compromise of spy tech is another matter . . . and one that seems somewhat moot now. In any case, a DT high five to the Pacific Fleet blackshoes who pulled this feat off.

-- Ward

Plot Thickens in Texas UFO Crisis

Tonopah redux?

As we reported here a few days back folks in Texas are seeing UFOs and now the Air Force appears to be changing it's story a bit. The plot thickens. This from a report running in Military.com's headlines right now:

Fighter jets were training nearby the night dozens of Stephenville-area residents reported seeing a UFO this month, Air Force Reserve officials said Jan. 23, backtracking on earlier statements.

The announcement did little to satisfy residents of Texas dairy country who swear that what they saw in the sky Jan. 8 was no airplane. Some said it even bolstered their claims, because several people reported seeing at least two fighter jets chasing an object.

"This supports our story that there was UFO activity in that area," said Kenneth Cherry, the Texas director of the Mutual UFO Network, which took more than 50 reports from locals at a meeting last weekend. "I find it curious that it took them two weeks to 'fess up. I think they're feeling the heat from the publicity."

Officials at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth initially said none of their planes had been in the area, but on Wednesday they said 10 F-16s were there that day. The officials said they were mistaken and wanted to set the record straight "in the interest of public awareness."

Public awareness, indeed. Something is rotten in Denmark . . . and Texas. Remember, this is the same organization that developed the F-117 in the Nevada desert for years and years without anybody knowing about it. Have the citizens of Texas been given an unintentional glimpse of a black program?

Read the entire report here.

(Image: Secret base at Tonopah, Nevada where the F-117 was developed.)

-- Ward

MDA Pressing Ahead with Euro BMD

Lt. Gen. Henry (Trey) Obering, U.S. Missile Defense Agency director, says the $85 million funding cut to his plans for radar and interceptor installations in Eastern Europe is "not as bad as it could have been.""I do believe that this is something that we can live with," Obering said during an interview with Aviation Week & Space Technology. The cut was recently approved by a House-Senate conference committee on Fiscal 2008 appropriations.The reduction could result in at least a six-month delay in plans to establish a site for interceptors in Poland and a sophisticated tracking and targeting radar in the Czech Republic.
Obering wants the interceptors in place by 2013 and the radar operating by 2011 to counter ballistic missile attacks from Iran that threaten the Middle East and most of Europe. Despite Russian opposition to the plans -- the Russian government says the system poses a threat to its security in the region -- the U.S. is moving forward. Obering maintains that the Russian radar in Gabala, Azerbaijan, will not provide the midcourse discrimination necessary to target missiles from Iran.Russia proposed the Gabala radar as an alternative to the sensor planned for the Czech Republic. MDA plans to relocate a midcourse tracking radar from the Pacific region to the site in the Czech Republic.Obering spoke with AW&ST from Kiev during one of a series of visits to explore opportunities to expand industry cooperation between the U.S. and Ukraine, which provided hefty technical expertise for the Soviet ballistic missile fleet.Already, cooperation exists with Boeing on the Sea Launch program and other efforts are under way with Lockheed Martin. The Ukraine is also thought to have conducted development work for the countermeasures incorporated into Soviet and now Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Read the rest of this story and see others from our Aviation Week partners at Military.com.

-- Christian