Hidden Truth/Hidden Truth.iso/data/misctexts/archive-texts/04-satel.txt

Text File | 1996-06-17 | 5.6 KB | 102 lines

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BRITAIN LIES IN PATH OF ROGUE SPY SATELLITE                            04/02/96
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Source: The Sunday Times
Date: February 4 1996

A ROGUE Chinese spy satellite has careered out of control and will crash to
Earth within the next few weeks from an orbit that takes it over the British
Isles.

The one-ton satellite, which passes over Britain and Ireland four or five times
a day, will turn into a fireball and hurtle to Earth some time in the first two
weeks of March, according to the scientists tracking it. They will be unable to
predict where it will strike until a few days beforehand.

"It would cause devastation if it landed in a built-up area," said Professor
Alan Johnstone of the Mullard Space Science Laboratories at University College
London. "They do not know where it is going to land and they cannot do anything
to regain control. It could come down anywhere and its orbit takes it over some
of the Earth's most populated areas."

Unlike most satellites, FSW1 is designed to withstand the 1,200C of heat
generated around its hull by re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere at 18,000mph.
It could still be travelling at well over a 1,000mph when it hits the surface.

The Chinese launched FSW1 in October 1993. It was due to spend just a few days
photographing Earth from space, after which it should have jettisoned a module
containing its cameras and other equipment and returned to Earth with the
films.

Western space scientists believe the satellite's controllers activated its
rockets at the wrong moment, sending the re-entry module into an unstable
elliptical orbit. It now swings around the Earth every 100 minutes, dipping
into the upper atmosphere at its closest approach at 100 miles above the Earth,
then spinning 2,000 miles into outer space before starting its return journey.
Dr Richard Crowther, a senior scientist at the Defence Research Agency, an arm
of the Ministry of Defence at Farnborough, Hampshire, said the rogue satellite
was being kept under close surveillance. "It spends much more time over areas
of high latitude, which includes the UK, northern Europe and north America, so
that is probably where it will land," he said.

Andrew Wilson, the editor of Jane's Space Directory, has followed the fate of
FSW1 ever since the Chinese lost control of it. "The chances are it will fall
in the ocean, simply because it covers 70% of the Earth's surface, but we have
to be cautious. Its orbit also takes it over a huge part of the world's
population."

Some western space scientists have spent months trying to work out whether FSW1
will survive the impact. They believe that obtaining the films it contains
would be an intelligence coup, showing what the Chinese were spying on and how
much they were able to see. The chances, however, could be slim; FSW1 is a
primitive craft by modern standards, so primitive that, according to Jane's,
its heat shield is made from oak planks.

"It may survive the trip through the atmosphere, but the impact with the
surface will almost certainly reduce it to fragments," said one scientist.

Nick Johnson, a specialist in space debris and obsolete satellites who works as
a consultant with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa),
said it would leave a crater up to 30ft wide and 20ft deep. "The chances of it
hitting a built-up area are, however, very low," he said.

Most of the tracking has been done by the United States Space Command (UNSC) in
Colorado Springs, which follows nearly 9,000 orbiting man-made objects through
11 radar stations around the world. Its main aim is to prevent their re-entry
being mistaken for ballistic missile warheads, thus triggering a nuclear alert,
but it also provides foreign governments with an early warning service. Its
scientists hope to be able to give several days' warn ing of where FSW1 will
crash-land.

Lieutenant-Colonel Jim House, UNSC's chief of space operations, said the
satellite's orbit was already deteriorating daily. "Last Monday it came within
99 miles of Earth, but by Friday that had decreased to 96 miles. It is
suffering increasing drag from the upper atmosphere, which will pull it down
even faster."

Several orbiting objects have plunged to Earth. In 1978 there were worldwide
protests when the Soviets' nuclear-powered Cosmos 954 satellite came down over
northern Canada, blazing a trail of radioactive debris across the tundra.

In 1979 20 tons of the American Skylab station smashed into the Australian
outback. Large chunks of the Russian Salyut 7 space station also crashed into
South American forests, starting several fires. One piece was reported to have
fallen into the back garden of a house where an Argentine woman was doing her
ironing.

So far, however, there are no known human victims of space debris and the only
confirmed casualty was a cow in Cuba that was killed outright by a falling
rocket motor in the mid-1960s.

Crowther said: "There's not much reason for anyone in Britain to worry. We
think that people stand slightly more chance of winning the national lottery
than of being hit by this satellite."


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