Pentagon might launch missile at satellite Wednesday

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon’s window for shooting down a failed spy satellite as it hurtles toward earth opens Wednesday morning, when the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to touch down in Florida, and government officials indicated today that the first shot could be taken just hours after the landing.

Ships and aircraft were warned by federal officials today to avoid the north Pacific test area Wednesday, said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. But Morrell said that no final decision had been made about when to take the shot.

According to the website of Ted Molczan, a well-known amateur satellite tracker in Canada, the federal notice warns ships and planes to avoid a restricted zone just west of Hawaii for 2½ hours beginning at 6:30 p.m. Pacific time Wednesday – or 4:30 p.m. Hawaiian time.

A senior Defense official involved in the shoot-down program said that because the satellite is dormant and has been flying through the freezing temperatures of outer space, Navy commanders will rely on the sun to warm the craft so that the missile being shot at the spacecraft – which relies heavily on heat to find its target – can locate it. Such calculations make a daytime shoot down most likely.

The 5,000-pound spy satellite went bad soon after its 2006 launch and has been orbiting out of the control of ground technicians. The craft is operated by the National Reconnaissance Organization, the U.S. agency in charge of spy satellites, which has not divulged the spacecraft’s mission.

The Bush administration decided last week to try to shoot the satellite down using a ship-based weapon that is part of the U.S. missile defense system. It is the first attempt to shoot down a satellite since tests on that capability were undertaken during Cold War-era tests in the 1980s.

Administration officials said President Bush signed off on the plan to shoot the satellite down out of public safety concerns. The craft’s fuel tank could survive re-entry and its hydrazine rocket fuel could disperse on impact, imperiling public safety, they said.

peter.spiegel@latimes.com