Satellite shoot down scheduled for tonight
As you probably know by now, the U.S. military is going to try to shoot down a dying satellite on Wednesday, around 10:30 PM eastern time (3:30 AM Greenwich Mean Time on the 21st), before it plummets into the atmosphere. That's right smack in the middle of a lunar eclipse, which should make the machine easier to track. Satellite-watchers have figured out where the Navy cruiser will take its shot -- and where the debris cloud is likely to go afterwards.
The red line represents the path of the satellite. The pink shape, bounded by blue lines, is the "restricted area" above the cruisers. (The military has blocked out almost the same area, 24 hours later, in case the first shot misses.) And those yellow splotches are Hawaii. As you can see, the Navy plans to take the satellite out over the Pacific. Which is not unexpected. (Here's an animated graphic.)
More startling, veteran satellite-watcher AT says, is where the debris cloud will go. "To my considerable surprise, it's on an ascending pass that will take the debris cloud across central Canada a few minutes later. Then across a bit of western Africa and eastern Australia." Here's the plot:
UPDATE: Zarya notes that this wasn't the only option of when to take down the satellite, designated USA-193. "The interception could have been set for a time when USA-193 was passing over the area in a southbound direction." That would be around 7:55 AM eastern (12:55 PM GMT) on the 21st. And on the first pass, at least, the debris cloud would appear to steer clear of densely-populated zones.
However, "there are some disadvantages in the southbound option," Zarya cautions. "The interception would occur in the Earth's shadow so optical tracking close to the event would not be possible, and the next few orbital passes overfly significant population centres," including "populated parts of Africa, the Middle East, southern Russia, other south Asian states, the Peoples' Republic of China, and Europe."
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