Frontier India Strategic and Defence - News, Analysis, Opinion

Written on February 21, 2008 – 2:10 pm | by Frontier India Strategic and Defence |

Riki Ellison, President of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance today announced “A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) was fired a few minutes earlier off the USS Lake Erie using information fed by the ship’s on board Aegis radar tracking and discrimination sensor to guide the missile close to the falling satellite where the missile engaged its heat seeking sensor thereby enabling a direct perpendicular hit on the 5,000 lb satellite with a kinetic energy impact of 22,000 mph.”

US military says that its network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the earth’s atmosphere, defense officials announced in a press release.

At approximately 10:26 p.m. EST today, a U.S. Navy AEGIS warship, the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph. USS Decatur (DDG-73) and USS Russell (DDG-59) were also part of the task force.

The objective was to rupture the fuel tank to dissipate the approximately 1,000 pounds (453 kg) of hydrazine, a hazardous fuel which could pose a danger to people on earth, before it entered into earth’s atmosphere. Confirmation that the fuel tank has been fragmented should be available within 24 hours.

In the mission, the SPY-1B radar on the cruiser USS Lake Erie detected the satellite during its orbit and, through the capable equipment and computer programs comprising the Aegis Weapon System, computed a targeting solution to guide an SM-3 missile to intercept the satellite. Once the SM-3 was launched from the ship’s MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS), Aegis guided the missile to the terminal phase of the intercept.

Due to the relatively low altitude of the satellite at the time of the engagement, debris will begin to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere immediately. Nearly all of the debris will burn up on reentry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days.

The Sea Based X band radar was deployed in the area to support independently the discrimination and tracking of the destroyed Satellite. Other US military sensors and satellites were deployed in the area and were also used for evaluation of the intercept.”

US Navy will now begin the process of reversing the modifications to USS Lake Erie and the two destroyers participating in the mission, USS Decatur and USS Russell, to return the Aegis systems to their normal BMD and multi-mission configuration.

The MDA and the U.S. Navy are jointly developing Aegis BMD as part of the United States’ Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). Currently, 10 U.S. Navy Aegis-equipped warships have the ability to conduct long range search and track and engage ballistic missiles. Another seven Aegis warships are equipped with Aegis BMD long range surveillance and track capability. Ultimately 15 Aegis destroyers and three Aegis cruisers will be outfitted with the ability to engage short to intermediate range ballistic missile threats and support other BMDS engagements using the Aegis BMD Weapon System and the SM-3. Japan has purchased Aegis BMD capability for their Kongo-class Aegis destroyers.