The Sky is Falling – Naw, It’s Just a Spy Satellite

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If I were you, I’d be wearing my helmet out of doors until April. A defunct U.S. spy satellite will careen into the Earth some time between late February and March, according to an anonymous government official.

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret.

"Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, when asked about the situation after it was disclosed by other officials. "Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause."
That makes me feel comfortable. How long did our government plan to keep the fact that a 20,000 pound satellite the size of a school bus was going to plummet from the skies? At least it will produce “less debris than the Columbia space shuttle crash in 2003.”

It’s OK though, they have other things to worry about:

Such an uncontrolled re-entry could risk exposure of U.S. secrets, said John Pike, a defense and intelligence expert. Spy satellites typically are disposed of through a controlled re-entry into the ocean so that no one else can access the spacecraft, he said.
Slashdot guesses that it might be a KH-11 class digital reconnaissance satellite, launched between 1976 and 1990. According to Wikipedia, the only remaining KH-11s in orbit are KH11-6 and KH11-8 through -10, the rest having reached their decay date some 20 years ago.

This begs the question: what possible state secrets could be aboard these floating piles of 80’s memorabilia? I don’t think we used them to stash the name of JFK’s killer, or the secrets of Area-51. You might assume that someone would have downloaded the contents of these ancient behemoths at least a couple of times over in the past decade.

NASA estimates that there are almost 25,000 satellites circling the Earth, “8681 currently in orbit, and over 16,000 objects in a state of decay.”

Bigger things have fallen out of the sky:

The largest uncontrolled re-entry by a NASA spacecraft was Skylab, the 78-ton abandoned space station that fell from orbit in 1979. Its debris dropped harmlessly into the Indian Ocean and across a remote section of western Australia.
With nine countries currently able to launch satellites into orbit without outside help, and roughly thirty countries launching satellites with assistance from other countries, that’s a lot of junk up there.

We’re going to need a bigger helmet.

punk is having trouble deciding between a bicycle helmet and a WWII M1.

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