I'd imagine that the communications portion of a satellite would be quite an important part of it. I'd hazard a guess and say that fitting two systems on a single satellite would be quite an engineering pain in the ass, just for the sake of redundancy.

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“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.” -Dr. Carl Sagan

Yeah. Incidentally, it was to good an opportunity to pass up showing the Chinese the proper way to blow up a satellite.

I really do think its a propaganda opportunity. Over a thousand meteorites have been witnessed reaching the earth's surface in the last 100 year, and many more we have not detected. We never bothered to shoot any of those down.

Meteorites don't have hydrazine fuel tanks.

Or top secret military equipment.

That is also true.

In addition, small meteorites are incredibly hard to track, are moving at tens of thousands of miles per hour, are usually small, and are headed directly toward the center of the earth and not orbiting the planet on a predictable path.

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“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.” -Dr. Carl Sagan

From a boat by tracking?
It was dead…

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Only a liberal would know how hard it is to get a nicotine patch to stick to a monkey.

Without telemetry there was no way of calculating within days just when the satellite would de orbit.

There is a system that can spot and track meteors when they enter atmosphere, it was used for reflecting burst transmissions off space rocks when no communications satellites were available.
A very tricky way of sending messages beyond the horizon and pretty much beyond interception or jamming.

Just thought I'd post the link to the video if anyone's not seen it yet.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Pretty freaking cool.... That satellite was travelling at about Mach 22.

Quite an impressive intercept.

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Congratulations President-Elect Obama

Cool !!!
Too bad it wasn't in color.

yes , good kill......mach 22? humm......I would like to know how fast the rockets are moving that we are shooting down with the missile defense system...the satellite is not going near as fast, so those are even more impressive I would imagine...

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

That they put up in the first place I might add. That being said, I'm glad they destroyed it but I wish everyone would stop comparing it to missile defense. Which are way faster, and way more tricker. Also a hell of a lot more controversial.

Can't find a number. Best I could find was the satellite was moving at twice the speed of the missile upon impact. That'd make a speed of at least mach 10 for the missile. I imagine it moves that fast because there's less air resistance in the upper atmosphere.

AFAIK, ballistic missiles are slower, but they don't nicely orbit the earth and let you choose your moment to shoot them down.