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Weather could delay satellite shoot-down

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will make the final call to launch the missile that is intended to knockout an errant spy satellite, a senior military official told reporters Wednesday morning.

Normally, the ship’s captain — in this case, Capt. Randall Hendrickson of the cruiser Lake Erie — would give the order to launch. For this mission, however, Strategic Command chief Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton will advise Gates on the best time to shoot and Gates will contact Hendrickson to give the final go-ahead.

“It is unusual,” the senior military official acknowledged.

After defense sources indicated Tuesday the shoot-down could happen as early as Wednesday evening, they revised their predictions at a Wednesday morning Pentagon press briefing, saying that high seas in the Pacific Ocean could impede the launch. But the shoot-down has not yet officially been scrubbed.

The National Geospatial Agency has issued an advisory warning aviators and mariners of hazardous operations in a large area of the north Pacific Ocean near Hawaii from 9:30 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday to midnight Thursday, setting off speculation that this will be the window the Navy uses to shoot down the satellite.

The window for the shot began Wednesday and lasts until Feb. 29, the official added. In order for the shot to occur, the ship must be in a precise location with a window of time in the “tens of seconds” to launch. The shot will take place during daylight hours Hawaii time, the official explained, because the light will offer a “higher degree of confidence” that the satellite was hit.

The plan is to launch an SM-3 missile at the precise time when, if the shot is successful, debris from the satellite will fall to Earth over water. The debris trail is expected to fall in the first three revolutions of the satellite around the planet, which last approximately 90 minutes each, the official said.

The Navy will fire a modified SM-3 missile, using the Aegis ballistic missile defense weapons system to shoot down the malfunctioning satellite, which Defense Department officials fear could potentially shower hazardous debris.

The missile does not contain a warhead — it destroys its target using the force of the impact. The SM-3 is the same missile the Navy uses in its ballistic missile defense tests, but the three missiles modified for the satellite shoot-down have software alterations designed to hit the specific target, a Navy official told reporters Tuesday afternoon at the Pentagon. The official requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the missile shot.

Ultimately, the Navy is equipped to take three shots at the satellite, but there will be some period of time in between them, according to the Pentagon. Officials would not specify how long they would wait to try again if the first shot misses, nor would they reveal how often the broken satellite completes an orbit over the Earth. A typical Aegis BMD test, in which a warship destroys a test ballistic rocket fired from a range in Hawaii, lasts between 20 and 80 seconds.

The Pentagon first became aware of the potentially dangerous re-entry of the satellite early this year, according to press reports. The satellite, known as USA 193, experienced problems upon launch in 2006 and is roughly the size of school bus, DoD officials confirmed.

It took the Navy about six weeks to make the necessary modifications to the missiles and radars to “take it to sea with some degree of confidence,” the Navy official said at Tuesday’s briefing. The Navy had no prior capability to shoot down satellites and had previously “not explored that,” the source added.

The challenge for the Navy in hitting the satellite is the nature of the target, the official said. The satellite is “bigger and faster than a missile” and the target must be hit in the fuel tank, which remains full, the official said. The Defense Department will send out a statement within an hour of the missile’s launch, but it could take a day or longer to determine if the fuel tank was hit, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday.

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