The USS Lake Erie scored a direct hit at 10:26pm ET last night on the failing spy satellite, leaving little else behind but pieces "nothing larger than a football," Pentagon officials said today.
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an expert on military space technologies, said the government has a "high degree of confidence" that the missile launched last night hit exactly where intended.
But forget all that, we all want to see the satellite go boom. Sure, the video is a little grainy, but Cartwright is kind enough to slow down the footage so we get the full "impact" (ha! get it?).
[via Engadget]
Watch the video after the jump...
So we really hit a satellite traveling at what ever speed in orbit with a ship launched missile? This still being the Bush White House and the Bush Pentagon, why do I have this little voice in the back of my head telling me this video is right up there with the "fake" moon landing?
Would the Pentagon really come out and say "sorry, our $300 billion missile system that we bought doesn't really work?" if they missed? No, they would fake it!
Well, One shot and we knock a rogue satellite out of the air. Nice!! I feel pretty confident that a missile defense system can be plossible, right about now.
Too bad they didn't hit any Sirius synchronous orbit Sat's by mistake....lol
Perhaps they sent up a dummy satellite to test the system!
The NAB is trying to rent out the missle system to take out XM and Sirius.
Howard & Mel can afford enough of these to shoot down the XM sats. Maybe we will see that when the merger is done.
Sorry, I'm a douche without a life.
@Joe D: It was traveling at only 22,000 mph. :)
Knowing the Government, I'm shocked that they didn't blow something else up, that this didn't take 3 years, but I'm sure it cost 2.3 billion dollars to do.
USA Government : A collection of f- - - ups that are.