Navy missile hits spy satellite - Space- msnbc.com

WASHINGTON - A missile launched from a Navy ship successfully struck a dying U.S. spy satellite passing 130 miles over the Pacific on Wednesday, a defense official said.

Two officials said the missile was launched successfully just after 10:30 p.m. ET. One official, who is close to the process, said it hit the target. He said details on the results were not immediately known.

The goal in this first-of-its-kind mission for the Navy was not just to hit the satellite but to obliterate a tank aboard the spacecraft carrying 1,000 pounds of a toxic fuel called hydrazine.

[From Navy missile hits spy satellite - Space- msnbc.com]

The missile used has been reported as a variant of the RIM-161 SM-3.
What I find fascinating is that the purpose of the mission wasn't simply to intercept the satellite, but to hit a specific spot, the hydrazine tank. Also, at least in the SM-3, the warhead is a kinetic warhead, which means that the missile kills by punching its target, not by blowing it up with an explosive warhead and/or the shrapnel generated by such an explosion.

Cross your fingers, the end may be near

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Hollywood writers on Saturday gave resounding support to a tentative agreement with studios that could end a strike that has crippled the entertainment industry. However, it appeared the approval process might briefly delay their return to work.

About 3,500 writers packed the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles to hear from union leaders about the proposed deal that was finalized just hours before meetings were held on both coasts by the Writers Guild of America.

[From Writers strike may be nearing 'The End' - CNN.com]

About god damn time, too many good shows got cut short because of this mess. Others (*cough* Lost *cough*) should have been cancelled under general principles. What we have seen in the past two weeks is some of the worst writing in any kind of TV show of the past decade. It was just lousy.

Schadenfreude

From Wikipedia:

"[Schadenfreude] is a German word meaning 'pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune'. It has been borrowed by the English language[1] and is sometimes also used as a loanword by other languages."

The perfect example is these people cheering as a meter maid tickets a Bugatti Veyron because it is parked illegally:

A spy satellite is plummeting down to earth, we are all doomed

I am a former military satellite communications controller. Satellites usually have two controllers:

1. one controls the bird itself, that is, where it goes to, etc. plus whatever on-board systems are needed to make this happen.

2. another one controls what goes through it, this is usually called the payload. The payload could be communications, cameras, etc.

God know how it is done now, but for bulk communications satellites the US Air Force had control of the bird itself, and the US Army controlled the payload. It gave me an interesting front row seat to see some interesting things about satellites that most people usually don't give a crap about. For example, even at 22,300 miles away, geosynchronous satellites move a little bit and trace a figure "8." Or that at certain times of the year the sun would be in a spot where its radiation would challenge the radiation emitted by the satellite.

Another cool thing we learned is that those satellites use small rockets to maneuver in space, and that here is a finite amount of fuel for these rockets. Run out of fuel? The satellite may eventually fall off the sky. Low orbit satellites will probably drop a hell of a lot faster. If the spacecraft loses electrical power it turns into a brick.

Sometime over the weekend we were told that a US spy satellite is bricked and is expected to drop. The problem? There is no way to know where it is going to crash.

My first reaction was that we would replay the Skylab panic. Then I started noticing something funny in the news:

As it got reported, the news got more and more pessimistic. Here's a small sample of the headlines:

Google News search for "spy satellite lost power"