Team ready to chase satellite’s remnants

By REBECCA SANTANA

Associated Press Writer

updated 6:45 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2008

MCGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. - With haz-mat suits at the ready, a quick response team stood on alert to head anyplace on Earth that the pieces of a lame satellite shot down by the military might fall.

The recovery squad, dubbed Operation Burnt Frost, is made up of military and civilian personnel from at least 15 government agencies including the Air Force, Coast Guard and Environmental Protection Agency. The unit was assembled in less than a week with the goal of protecting people from remnants of the bus-sized satellite, especially the potentially hazardous fuel tank.

"This is an incredible effort," Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey C. Horne, who is in charge of the team, said Thursday. "What we're doing is to make sure that we're ready as soon as we're called."

A Navy cruiser blasted the errant satellite with a missile Wednesday night. Officials said the strike appeared to have accomplished its main goal of exploding a tank of toxic fuel 130 miles above the Pacific Ocean.

Gen. James Cartwright said Thursday that it could be 24 to 48 hours before the military knows whether the tank was destroyed. He said the team was prepared to collect the debris and fuel tank if needed.

Normally, a dying satellite would fall to Earth on its own, with little chance the pieces surviving re-entry would actually hit something.

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The concern with this satellite was that the 1,000-pound fuel tank was nearly full of hydrazine, a toxic fuel often used to power spacecraft. Officials warned that if the tank hit ground, the tank itself or fumes from the fuel could hurt or even kill people.

The satellite became uncontrollable almost immediately after it was launched in 2006, when it lost power and its central computer failed. Left alone, the 5,000-pound satellite would have hit Earth during the first week of March, military officials previously estimated.

Early Thursday, many of the satellite's remnants were already starting to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, mostly over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and none of the pieces was larger than a football, Cartwright said.

If the fuel tank were to land in the ocean, the water would neutralize the hydrazine, Horne said previously.

The task force assembled at McGuire Air Force Base in central New Jersey was pulled together primarily to recover any of the space shrapnel if it were to fall on land.

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