Ka-pow!
Star wars time, baby! The U.S. is set to shoot down the USA-193 spy satellite as early as tonight, which was launched in December of ‘06. For whatever reason, ground controllers lost contact with the satellite after it was launched.
Behind all of the War on Terrorism news, the Space Race has been harboring some secret tensions between the U.S., Russia, and China.
China and Russia have expressed concerns about a US plan to shoot down what officials in Washington say is a crippled spy satellite, with that event to take place potentially as early as this week.
Russia’s defense ministry has said it fears the US plan is a veiled weapons test and represents an “attempt to move the arms race into space”, while Washington has insisted it is merely trying to prevent it hitting Earth.
The possibility of a hostile Space Race, while not totally appetizing, has the advantage of finally igniting further progress into space exploration, which I constantly harp about. And that’s not all that’s interesting about this satellite.
According to Space.com:
Though the satellite’s objective is secret, many believe it is probably a high-resolution radar satellite intended to produce images for the National Reconnaissance Office.
Yet the government claims the satellite is being shot down because of “toxic hydrazine fuel.” I don’t know what’s more likely, that the government is lying about secret contents, or that those secret contents are so unreachable that the hydrazine really poses a threat to people.
How about neither? Maybe the military is showing off - China sure seems to think so.
How’s it going to work? Here’s the video.
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