BMD in the raw

Target Ahoy!

This week sometime, this being Feb 2008, we will likely see an attempt to shoot at a passing satellite from an Aegis class cruiser using a modified SM3 missile just off Hawaii.

It has been reported today that the initial attempts may be called off because of high seas, there being a 6 - 8 foot swell off Hawaii.

Way back when, NATO's big fear was that they would be caught out by the atheist Reds, on a Christmas Eve, in the middle of a snow storm, by 7000 tanks rolling into West Germany, while our troops prayed at home with their families. Fortunately it never happened.

BMD has faced a reality issue from day one; could it shoot down a surprise missile launch by an unfriendly country? Do we have the resources to find the target, track it, and shoot it down, presumably in difficult circumstances with little warning?

We now have the satellite, USA-193, winging it's lonely, chilly, way across the sky about every 90 minutes. It's been doing this, lower and lower, since it's launch in 2004. It's orbit is known to within a few arc seconds. Even the civilian Satellite hounds know where it is. This is the target we will try and shoot at. It's in the crosshairs.

Rough Seas

I used to live by the North Sea, a flat calm day still had a 4 foot swell. A rough day in the Southern basis saw 70 foot seas. Heck, it's hard catching fish in this, let alone launching a complex missile at a target 150 miles over your head, moving at 17,000+ miles per hour.

The US Navy has fired at SCUD class targets with the SM3 on a number of occasions very successfully, but the conditions in which those intercepts took place seem to have been optimal.

It could be that to shoot at this satellite, the SM3 is at the edge of its envelope, but the Navy has not indicated that. The Navy has stated they have several shots at this thing, three to be precise. That one will be made, and decisions to go again will be made if it is deemed necessary. This sounds like confident talk.

When the Brass came out today and said this swell was going to limit possible engagement opportunities, the ability of BMD systems to function in a rough and ready world had to be questioned. If they miss this satellite because the waves were too "rough" what does it say to the Iranians about our first line of missile defense? What does it say about our ability to react to a surprise launch? On a future, blustery Christmas eve, perhaps?

We have to wish the Navy good luck in this and hope it works out. I certainly wouldn't like 2500kgs of steaming Hydrazine filled satellite remains sitting in my back garden. That said, it makes me wonder even more, just what have we got for the Billions of Dollars spent on BMD over the last 3 decades?

Addendum

The Navy fired the SM3 and hit the satellite at the first try. So much for soothsaying!

The scattering of the satellite will now take some time to determine. While much of it will continue to descend to an untimely end and burn up in the atmosphere, parts will have been invigorated in a classic transfer of energy and punched into much higher orbits. The large stuff will come down soon, but the small particles of titanium, aluminium, carbon fiber, paint flecks and other detritus that has been energized by this could take years to come down. This is the stuff of space faring nightmares

So who looks better here? The USA or China? I think they both lost. They are sparing in an arena neither has the right to be in. The tax payers of both countries have to face the possibility that this just started a new, ugly and very expensive arms race. It also guarantees that in the opening minutes of a next generation conflict, space will be full of junk, not intelligence gathering tools.