7 ms·

I do wonder if something happened to the satellite necessitating destruction. Everything about this seems so unbelievably reckless that it feels like an emergen

I do wonder if something happened to the satellite necessitating destruction. Everything about this seems so unbelievably reckless that it feels like an emergency protocol being enacted. It's an old satellite but old encryption keys still need to be guarded for the sake of the historical data that might be decrypted with them. I guess i just don't understand such a sudden move that's literally putting their own citizens lives (let alone all the others) at such risk.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Bud 5y ago
Russia demonstrably does not care about its citizens' lives. At all. Neither does the Trump GOP, as demonstrated so vividly by covid. https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/house-investigators-release-interview-excerpts-with-messonnier-birx-and-others/d4efe499-329f-41c7-a3aa-0e06b0e52b94/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/house-investigators-r...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- djfobbz 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - csallen 5y ago
    Among numerous other relevant differences, Biden has been president for longer than Trump was while COVID-19 was actually at meaningful levels in the US, so it's disingenuous to compare total death counts.
  - nautilius 5y ago
    You understand exponentials, right? It's like pointing an aircraft at the ground, removing flight controls, and then handing over saying 'it's yours now, if it crashes it's not my fault'.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      There probably is a fraction of the US population that buys into such nonsense.
      - nautilius 5y ago
        The scary thing is that this fraction is substantial.
cududa 5y ago
How could the keys be recovered? I don’t understand how this action is the only choice to prevent them being captured? The most conspiratorial part of my mind thinks the projectile coated the debris in some isotope they have tracking capabilities for to build a “safety” use case for Soyuz
- akiselev 5y ago
  Recovering enemy satellites was one of the design goals imposed on the US Space Shuttle program by the Air Force. The shuttle ended up flying to the Hubble telescope to fix/upgrade it half a dozen times, though obviously they kept it in orbit rather than recovering it. The DOD probably has a replacement for the shuttle that does the same thing. I seem to remember a DARPA program over a decade ago
  - alangibson 5y ago
    The DOD actually wanted to be able to do it in a single orbit. Like a smash and grab in space. Would have been amazing if they pulled it off.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    DARPA’s spacecraft became the x-37B, which probably has fuck-with-satellites capability via robot arm but a rather paltry 4 ft by 7 ft payload bay (The shuttle had 15 ft by 60 ft !)
    - akiselev 5y ago
      > but a rather paltry 4 ft by 7 ft payload bay IIRC there's a scaling limit with modern military/spy satellites on two axes: radar cross section and thermal output both grow with volume and make the satellite easier to target in a real conflict (which is ostensibly what many of them are for). The big ones like the satellite NRO donated to NASA with the 2.4 m diameter mirrors are easy to disable and AFAIK there's not much point recovering them anyway. The ones used for telecom with recoverable military encryption keys tend to be much smaller. For example, the 2nd gen Iridium constellation satellites are 30x40x70 cm.
_moof 5y ago
Not necessary. There is no spacecraft currently in operation that is capable of retrieving a satellite and returning it to Earth, and atmospheric drag would've destroyed it eventually anyway. At best this was negligence while testing a weapon. At worst it was a deliberate provocation.
- JorgeGT 5y ago
  Are we sure the X-37 doesn't have a robot arm to grab interesting bits of satellites? x)
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    There was a alleged incident this month where a US spy satellite approached a Chinese satellite and the Chinese satellite did a avoiding maneuver. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3154496/chinese-satellite-shows-space-warfare-prowess-dodging-us https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3154496/chi...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
inglor_cz 5y ago
Given how paranoid the Russians were about the Space Shuttle (they suspected it could take the entire abandoned Salyut V station into its cargo bay, "steal it" and return to the US with it so that enemy scientists could study it), they almost certainly have routines to destroy sensitive payloads and data at a distance. Also, just changing the orbit so that the perigee is sufficiently low (say, 200 km) will basically ensure complete burnup of the satellite in a matter of weeks. Atmospheric drag is a significant force on the lower orbits and what matters is the perigee, where the remnants of the atmosphere are densest. They will act as a powerful brake.
- alangibson 5y ago
  They weren't paranoid, they were right. The DOD specifically explored single orbit satellite grabs as a shuttle capability. I'm not sure if they ever made it a requirement though.
  - FourHand451 5y ago
    Scott Manley has a good video on this topic: https://youtu.be/_q2i0eu35aY https://youtu.be/_q2i0eu35aY
- gpderetta 5y ago
  The US lifted a wrecked Russian submarine from the bottom of the ocean with an incredibly complex covert operation. Just because you are paranoid, it doesn't means they are not after you :).
  - BoumTAC 5y ago
    What are you talking about ? Do you have a wikipedia link ?
    - _ph_ 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer But indeed, the US currently has no capacity to grab satellites from the orbit, so they just could have deorbited the satellite, if they wanted it to be destroyed in a safe manner.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Bud 5y ago

Russia demonstrably does not care about its citizens' lives. At all. Neither does the Trump GOP, as demonstrated so vividly by covid. https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/house-investigators-release-interview-excerpts-with-messonnier-birx-and-others/d4efe499-329f-41c7-a3aa-0e06b0e52b94/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/house-investigators-r...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
djfobbz 5y ago
[flagged]
- csallen 5y ago
  Among numerous other relevant differences, Biden has been president for longer than Trump was while COVID-19 was actually at meaningful levels in the US, so it's disingenuous to compare total death counts.
- nautilius 5y ago
  You understand exponentials, right? It's like pointing an aircraft at the ground, removing flight controls, and then handing over saying 'it's yours now, if it crashes it's not my fault'.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    There probably is a fraction of the US population that buys into such nonsense.
    - nautilius 5y ago
      The scary thing is that this fraction is substantial.

cududa 5y ago

How could the keys be recovered? I don’t understand how this action is the only choice to prevent them being captured? The most conspiratorial part of my mind thinks the projectile coated the debris in some isotope they have tracking capabilities for to build a “safety” use case for Soyuz

akiselev 5y ago
Recovering enemy satellites was one of the design goals imposed on the US Space Shuttle program by the Air Force. The shuttle ended up flying to the Hubble telescope to fix/upgrade it half a dozen times, though obviously they kept it in orbit rather than recovering it. The DOD probably has a replacement for the shuttle that does the same thing. I seem to remember a DARPA program over a decade ago
- alangibson 5y ago
  The DOD actually wanted to be able to do it in a single orbit. Like a smash and grab in space. Would have been amazing if they pulled it off.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  DARPA’s spacecraft became the x-37B, which probably has fuck-with-satellites capability via robot arm but a rather paltry 4 ft by 7 ft payload bay (The shuttle had 15 ft by 60 ft !)
  - akiselev 5y ago
    > but a rather paltry 4 ft by 7 ft payload bay IIRC there's a scaling limit with modern military/spy satellites on two axes: radar cross section and thermal output both grow with volume and make the satellite easier to target in a real conflict (which is ostensibly what many of them are for). The big ones like the satellite NRO donated to NASA with the 2.4 m diameter mirrors are easy to disable and AFAIK there's not much point recovering them anyway. The ones used for telecom with recoverable military encryption keys tend to be much smaller. For example, the 2nd gen Iridium constellation satellites are 30x40x70 cm.

_moof 5y ago

Not necessary. There is no spacecraft currently in operation that is capable of retrieving a satellite and returning it to Earth, and atmospheric drag would've destroyed it eventually anyway. At best this was negligence while testing a weapon. At worst it was a deliberate provocation.

JorgeGT 5y ago
Are we sure the X-37 doesn't have a robot arm to grab interesting bits of satellites? x)
- dragonelite 5y ago
  There was a alleged incident this month where a US spy satellite approached a Chinese satellite and the Chinese satellite did a avoiding maneuver. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3154496/chinese-satellite-shows-space-warfare-prowess-dodging-us https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3154496/chi...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

inglor_cz 5y ago

Given how paranoid the Russians were about the Space Shuttle (they suspected it could take the entire abandoned Salyut V station into its cargo bay, "steal it" and return to the US with it so that enemy scientists could study it), they almost certainly have routines to destroy sensitive payloads and data at a distance. Also, just changing the orbit so that the perigee is sufficiently low (say, 200 km) will basically ensure complete burnup of the satellite in a matter of weeks. Atmospheric drag is a significant force on the lower orbits and what matters is the perigee, where the remnants of the atmosphere are densest. They will act as a powerful brake.

alangibson 5y ago
They weren't paranoid, they were right. The DOD specifically explored single orbit satellite grabs as a shuttle capability. I'm not sure if they ever made it a requirement though.
- FourHand451 5y ago
  Scott Manley has a good video on this topic: https://youtu.be/_q2i0eu35aY https://youtu.be/_q2i0eu35aY
gpderetta 5y ago
The US lifted a wrecked Russian submarine from the bottom of the ocean with an incredibly complex covert operation. Just because you are paranoid, it doesn't means they are not after you :).
- BoumTAC 5y ago
  What are you talking about ? Do you have a wikipedia link ?
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer But indeed, the US currently has no capacity to grab satellites from the orbit, so they just could have deorbited the satellite, if they wanted it to be destroyed in a safe manner.