US missile reduces toxic satellite to ball-sized chunks
Foreign Desk Report

WASHINGTON—The missile that struck a rogue US spy satellite in space carrying toxic fuel reduced it to football-sized chunks, and the Pentagon said it had a “high degree of confidence” its fuel tank was destroyed, officials said Thursday. General James Cartwright told reporters it would be 24-48 hours before a full confirmation would be available on the fuel tank.
The Defense Department has a “high degree of confidence we hit the tank” but “we can’t say for sure,” at this time, he said. A senior Pentagon official earlier had said the missile appeared to have struck the fuel tank containing hydrazine, which could have leaked toxic gas over a wide area if it had survived re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
“The intent here was to preserve human life ... it was the hydrazine we were after,” Cartwright, who is vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said rejecting Moscow’s suggestion it was an anti-missile test. “This is a modified system, this isn’t a missile defense system,” he said.
“The missile impacted the satellite in the area of the tank, we have a cloud that appears to be hydrazine,” he said. “It would have been irresponsible for us not to try to remove this risk, that’s what moved us.” So far the United States has not seen debris touch the Earth’s surface he added.
The Pentagon said on Thursday it was very confident that a Navy missile hit the toxic fuel tank of a defunct U.S. spy satellite, which could have caused harm if it had fallen to Earth intact. The spectacular and unprecedented strike took place over the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday after a U.S. Navy cruiser launched a missile as the satellite sped through space at more than 17,000 mph (27,400 kph), officials said.
“This was uncharted territory. The technical degree of difficulty was significant here,” said Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “You can imagine, at the point of intercept, there were a few cheers that went up in operations centers and on that ship,” Cartwright told reporters at the Pentagon.
Both Russia and China had expressed concern ahead of the mission, with Moscow suggesting it could be used as cover to test a new space weapon. But Washington said the only reason for the mission was to prevent harm to humans from the tank of hazardous hydrazine fuel on the bus-sized satellite, which was expected to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere within the next couple of weeks.
“We’re very confident that we hit the satellite. We also have a high degree of confidence that we got the tank,” Cartwright said, putting the chances that the tank had been breached at around 90 percent. He said a fireball in video images of the strike, a vapor cloud that formed and indications of hydrazine in the air all suggested the tank had been shattered. But he said it could take another 24 to 48 hours to know for sure. “From our position, you always want to hedge your bet because there’s no absolute certainty,” Cartwright said. Debris from the satellite had already started to re-enter the atmosphere over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans but nothing larger than a football had been detected so far, he said.
The 5,000-pound (2,270 kg) satellite was struck by an SM-3 missile fired from the USS Lake Erie northwest of Hawaii at 10:26 p.m. EST (0326 GMT Thursday), the Pentagon said. Wednesday’s operation was the first time a sea-based missile has been used to hit a satellite, according to experts. The United States and the Soviet Union conducted anti-satellite tests in the Cold War but used other techniques.
The operation used modified elements of its missile defense system. But officials have sought to avoid presenting this mission as a test for that system, saying hitting a satellite is quite different from trying to shoot down a missile. Some space experts have questioned the Pentagon’s justification for the mission, saying the chances of any part of the satellite causing harm were extremely remote.
But Pentagon officials have denied suggestions they wanted to destroy the satellite to prevent part of the classified spacecraft from falling into the hands of rival powers. “That, unto itself, was not enough reason to go after this satellite with a missile,” Cartwright said. “It’s the hydrazine that we’re focused on.”
U.S. officials also have rejected accusations from some security and space experts that the Pentagon was using the operation to test and demonstrate its ability to hit targets in space following an anti-satellite test by China last year. Washington says its case is different from the Chinese test because it was announced in advance and undertaken to protect people. It also says the Chinese craft was struck at a higher altitude, more crowded with other satellites.