US prepares to shoot down runaway spy satellite

An attempt to blast a crippled US spy satellite out of the sky using a navy heat-seeking missile may happen early tomorrow, the military says.

The shootdown would be the first real-world use of this piece of the Pentagon’s missile defence network – not the mission for which it was intended.

The missile bid, already approved by President George Bush, is seen by some as blurring the lines between defending against a weapon like a long-range missile and targeting satellites in orbit.

The three-stage US Navy missile, designated the SM-3, has chalked up a high rate of success in a series of tests since 2002, in each case targeting a short- or medium-range ballistic missile, but never a satellite.

A crash programme to adapt the missile for the anti-satellite mission was completed in a matter of weeks; navy chiefs say the changes will be reversed once the satellite is down.

The US government issued notices to aviators and mariners to remain clear of a section of the Pacific beginning at 10.30pm. Today, local time (2.30am tomorrow Irish Time), indicating the first window of opportunity to launch an SM-3 missile from a navy cruiser, the USS Lake Erie.

The wayward satellite lost power shortly after it reached orbit in late 2006. It is now well below the altitude of a normal satellite and the Pentagon wants to hit it with an SM-3 missile just before it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, to minimise the amount of debris that would remain in space.

Adding to the difficulty of the mission, the missile will have to do better than just hit the bus-size satellite, a navy official said.

It needs to strike the relatively small fuel tank aboard the spacecraft to accomplish the main goal, which is to eliminate the toxic fuel.

Also complicating the effort will be that the satellite has no heat-generating propulsion system on board.

That makes it more difficult for the navy missile’s heat-seeking system to work, although the official said software changes had been made to compensate for the lack of heat.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said defence secretary Robert Gates was briefed on the shootdown plan yesterday by the two officers, who will advise him on exactly when to launch the missile: General Kevin Chilton, head of the Strategic Command, and General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Mr Morrell said the cost of adapting the navy anti-missile system for this mission was €21-€27m.

China and Russia have expressed concern at the planned shootdown, saying it could harm security in outer space.

The US Navy ship-based system, which includes a command-and-control and radar system known as Aegis, as well as the SM-3 missiles, is just one segment of a larger, far-flung missile defence system that has been in development by the American military for more than three decades.

Managed by the Pentagon’s Missile Defence Agency, the programme includes interceptor missiles sitting in underground silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, as well as radars around the world that are used to track an enemy missile and help an interceptor hit it.

The missile defence system is configured mainly to counter a threat from North Korea.

The Bush administration, fearing an emerging missile threat from Iran, is in talks with Poland and the Czech Republic to place interceptor missiles in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic.