CHICOM ASAT test?

I ran Heavens-Above for the launch site for the morning of the test,
and Fengyun was NOT listed as visible. I'm presuming that
this means it was not sunlit.



"Jake McGuire" wrote
True. The intercept happening in shadow would indicate that targets
didn't have to be illuminated (IR or radar sensors), the intercept
happening during daylight on the ground would probably rule out
ground-based optical guidance, but the intercept happening on an
illuminated satellite at night (which seems to be what happened)
doesn't really tell us anything.

- jake

Derek Lyons wrote:
Of course at the *same* time - you are screwing with your own
scheduling and tasking.


That's true, you are going to have to figure out exactly what you are
going to do well in advance, and include that in your photographic
session planing.

Pat

Jim Oberg wrote:
I ran Heavens-Above for the launch site for the morning of the test,
and Fengyun was NOT listed as visible. I'm presuming that
this means it was not sunlit.

How about at the intercept point?

Pat

It happened pretty close to 22:25 UT on 11 [January] 2007, at 860 km
altitude. The lat/lon are somewhat speculative at the moment, but I
think around 40 N, 101 E is a decent guess.


The fine folks at MIT have now projected the orbits of the thirty-some
debris objects backward and,

" With a certain amount of error, the orbits can be traced backwards to
when they appear very closely bunched on 11 January 2007 at 22 hours,
26 minutes GMT... At that time they are over a position in China,
roughly 33.2 N, 99.8 E. This position is 560 km North-North East of
Xichang Satellite Launch Center."


It's also, unsurprisingly, directly on the ground track of FY-1C,
somewhat farther south and later than I'd guessed. If the ASAT flew
straight (no dog-leg), the approach was from the front with a
horizontal crossing angle of about 30 degrees (eyeball estimate). Can't
tell about the vertical crossing angle.

"Allen Thomson" wrote:

:
:Pat Flannery wrote:
:
: Here's mo http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1359/chinese-test-asat
: According to this, it's apparently a direct ascent weapon.
:
:If it was a direct ascent ASAT, I'll be very interested to learn what
:rocket was used. KT-1 is the obvious suspect, but it could have been
thers.
:
:Also, it's interesting that they apparently succeeded in performing a
:hit-to-kill intercept on the first try. That bespeaks a technological
:competence beyond what I would have expected.

Satellites aren't that hard to hit. They don't maneuver from their
fixed, well-known orbits, show up well on sensors, etc. Given a
booster that lets the weapon get into their orbit, killing satellites
just isn't that technically difficult.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw