WASHINGTON —
The U.S. military has issued aircraft advisories for a large area of the
Pacific Ocean for the evenings of Feb. 20 and Feb. 21, setting off speculation
that it will attempt to shoot down a wayward U.S. spy satellite on one or both
of those nights.
During a
press conference Feb. 14 announcing plans to try to down the satellite as a
safety measure, senior U.S. government officials said the attempt would occur
somewhere over the Pacific during a several-day window that opens when NASA's
space shuttle returns from its current mission.
The space shuttle Atlantis
will have its first of four landing opportunities Feb. 20 at NASA's Kennedy
Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 9:07 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Two Airmen
Notifications were issued by the military Feb. 19 instructing aviators to stay
clear of a large area west of Hawaii over the Pacific Ocean between the hours
of 9:30 p.m. eastern time Feb. 20 and 12:00 a.m. Feb. 21; and for the same
150-minute window Feb. 21-22.
U.S.
government officials said that if the first intercept is unsuccessful, there
could be a second attempt within two days.
Ted
Molczan, a satellite watcher who has been watching the failed spy satellite
closely since its launch in 2006, has calculated it will pass directly over the
area specified in the notifications for about three minutes around 10:30 p.m.
eastern time Feb. 20.
A U.S. Navy Aegis
ship will fire a modified Standard Missile 3 interceptor at the
out-of-control satellite, which otherwise would re-enter the atmosphere on its
own sometime in the next few weeks. U.S. government officials say they are
concerned that a tank full of toxic hydrazine fuel aboard the satellite will
survive the re-entry, with the resulting fumes potentially causing injury or
death in the unlikely event that the tank falls on a populated area.
If the
satellite — or more precisely, the hydrazine tank — is destroyed by the impact
of the missile before re-entry, U.S. officials say, the fuel will either burn
up or dissipate in the atmosphere, posing no threat.
Defense
Department officials have not confirmed that the notifications correlate with
shoot-down attempts. Calls placed with several Pentagon agencies were not
returned immediately.
