US to shoot down disabled spy satellite

Pointblank said:

And in 1 stroke, the USN surface fleet has reestablished its relevance that they had lost back when Billy Mitchell conducted his famous demonstrations off the Virginia Capes against surface ships with airplanes. Now every USN Aegis equipped warship with the SM-3 missile is a strategic asset essential for the defence of the United States.

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Well, IMHO, the US surface fleet has maintained that relevance throughout the entire time since Billy Mitchell.

Without that continued critical relevence the wars in the Pacific and Atlantic could not have been won in World War II. The invasion of Korea and retaking South Korea could not have happened. The keeping of the sea lanes safe for free transit ever since could not have been maintained.

The surface force composition has changed it is true (ie. the battleship lost its stature as the center piece in favor of the carrier), but the surface fleet has never lost its relevenace whatsoever.

Today, the US Navy showed that it was more than capale of doing on the Ocean what only one or two other nations outside of the US can do on land. No one else at this point has demonstrated that capability at Sea.

Pointblank said:

And in 1 stroke, the USN surface fleet has reestablished its relevance that they had lost back when Billy Mitchell conducted his famous demonstrations off the Virginia Capes against surface ships with airplanes. Now every USN Aegis equipped warship with the SM-3 missile is a strategic asset essential for the defence of the United States.

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Good point, this test can only mean good news for the DDX program. I congradulate the USN on a job well done as much as anyone else, but I fear that this has opened the door to a more open space arms race. However, I think a space arms race was ineveitable anyway, so I suppose that its good thing the country I live in is in the lead. I hate to be so crudely nationalistic but it seems that geopolitics have decided space must be weaponized.

Finn McCool said:

Good point, this test can only mean good news for the DDX program. I congradulate the USN on a job well done...

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As do I.

Despite protests to the contrary, the US demonstrated that it can destroy errant satellites that may pose a threat. I do not believe this was staged other than the US decided to use its new technology to ensure that this particular satellite did not make it to earth...and there are several reasons for it:

1) To avoid any major harm to life on the ground.
2) To avoid anything of technological importance from surviving rentry.
3) To demonstrate the capability.

Of course in demonstrating this capability against an errant, unarmed satellite coming out of orbit, the US Navy also punctuated its abaility to hit a potential weapon coming out of orbit. And it did it from the Sea, which means (as has been stated) that the US Navy can now do this from any place it locates a so-equiped AEGIS vessel (and not just the cruisers).

No other nation has such a capability at sea, and the US Navy's is now well demonstrated.

Indeed, bravo for the US Navy!

Just as a point of discussion and consideration, it seems to me, it would be fairly straight forward to locate a couple of these VLS cells on the ground at any strategic location (major cities, major installations, etc.) with the necessary tracking and targeting and use them for point defense. Hitting a terminal trajectory, once the weapon is coming in a straight line, would be a straight forward affair for this sysstem.

Hopefully this will also once and for all show how meaningless producer's promo pamphlets about max altitude for various SAM systems. 20.000 meters my ass for the likes of patriot and s300. If SM-3 can reach 130 miles vertically, other modern long range SAMs can shoot past any sort of airplane flight ceiling as well, no matter what 'officially published' figures say. After all, SA2 reached past 25.000 meters back in the early 60s, with much less advanced propellants.

I think that the US shoot down satellite operations, only the Anti-Ballistic Missile test not be regarded as anti-satellite tests, because the disabled satellite after leaving orbit and before falling in the atmosphere being shot down, I think, the standard III missiles will not be sufficient to used anti-satellite weapons.
However, the US anti-satellite technology is the world's leading, it should have the capacity to launched ballistic missiles destroy the satellites in orbit operation, and the ability to use space weapons in space hunting operation of the satellite in orbit.
I don't know witch technology is more complex and difficult-shoot down the coming ballistic missile or shoot down the satellite in orbit by launch missiles?

Here is the raw footage of the alledge direct hit.



Notice that at the midst of the video it slowly went blank, then after, the satellite simply exploded. I don't see the missile tail smoke at all. In fact, apart from the exploding satellite, I don't see a hit.

Why don't they show us the whole process from launch to hit ? There is nothing to hide. It's a military satellite, thus I think they would have some sort of self destruct code/mechanism.. who knows ?

Frankly, the slow blanking of the video made me sketicle. I'm still not convinced enough, since the video was one sided knowledge.

mobydog, If you listen to the video you can clearly here the narrator say their are two videos.

Personaly I believe the SM-3 fired from USS Lake Erie CG-70 did score a direct hit on the wayward sattelite. Period.

Why are you so skeptical?

Now that the SM-3 is able to hit a satellite in very low orbit, maybe it can become a real ASAT weapon when deployed from an aircraft.
That would be an interesting option, I think. AFAIK, there were already thoughts given to put PAC-3 missiles under F-15s as airborne ABM assets.

Scratch said:

Now that the SM-3 is able to hit a satellite in very low orbit, maybe it can become a real ASAT weapon when deployed from an aircraft.
That would be an interesting option, I think. AFAIK, there were already thoughts given to put PAC-3 missiles under F-15s as airborne ABM assets.

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An SM-3 may be a bit large to be air launched. Since I'm no areanatuical expert perhaps some one like crobato can elaborate.

SM-3 demensions..

Launch mass
Length 6.55 m (21 ft, 6 in)
Diameter 0.34 m (13.5 in)
Wingspan 1.57 m (61.8 in)

10 minutes later..I just realized that a Sunburn/Moskit is quite large and it can be air launched...So can an SM-3 be air launched??? Maybe. In the correct configuration.

Why should a big circle around to do that? destroy space orbit satellites from land launch ballistic missiles not more straightforward? Sea-based launch, can be done by the Ohio-class SSBN.
In this regard, the further development of the spacecraft, the US is on the air-space shutter, not only for anti-satellite weapons, but also the platform for attacking on earth enemy's strategic objectives from space.