Next week, the US will try to knockdown a malfunctioning spy satellite just before it crashes into earth. NASA will be putting its missile defenses to a real-life test to do this.
The US Navy Standard Missile fired from the Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie in the northern Pacific will—for the first time—attempt to hit a satellite the size of a bus that's tumbling towards earth laden with 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine.
The US spy satellite never used the fuel because it failed almost as soon at it was launched 15 months ago.
"We have had no way to communicate to invoke the safety measures that are already on the bird," US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen, James Cartwright, says.
With three quarters of the earth water, and with large parts of the land uninhabited, the chances are slim the satellite could kill anyone, yet possibilities of danger cannot be ruled out.
The problem is not so much the 5,000 lb satellite, but the 1,000 pounds of unused fuel that could cover 200 yards.
"It's hard to find areas that have any significant population to them where you could put a toxic substance down across a couple of football fields and not have somebody at risk," Administrator NASA, Michael Griffin says.
Some experts think the US may have another motive: keeping wreckage from one of its newest spy satellites out of enemy hands.
"This is the first of a new generation of radar-imaging intelligence satellites. It has advanced technology on it. They may just want to keep it off of eBay," John Pike from globalsecurity.org says.
Despite all the meticulous preparations, even if the missile misses there's no real downside.
"So there is almost nothing we can do here that makes it worse. Almost everything we can do technically makes it better, which was a very strong factor weighting the decision," Griffin says.
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