[ExI] Name the Rogue Satellite Operation

[spike]

> Eugen Leitl
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Name the Rogue Satellite Operation
> 
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 06:44:42AM -0700, hkhenson wrote:
> 
> > At least the US is being relatively responsible because debris that 
> > low will decay out of orbit in a short time.
> 
> If you hit an orbiting object with a kinetic kill vehicle, 
> the resulting fragments will go everywhere, higher orbits included.
...
> Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> 
> http://leitl.org 


Gene, hitting a satellite with an explosive when the satellite is in the
upper atmosphere might raise the apogee of some of the fragments, but the
perigee would still be right where it was when it was hit.  The fragments
have a lower ballistic coefficient than the whole, so their resulting orbit
decays rapidly.  This event will not do harm to LEO for more than a couple
weeks, whereas the Chinese have effectively ruled out a space elevator for
decades at least.

spike