A Pound of Thoughts

Well, it was a successful mission. The USS Lake Erie was able to fire an SM-3 missile to shoot down the rogue spy satellite whose orbit was decaying. The satellite’s fuel, hydrazine, was declared a threat to humans.

Per VOA News:

The Navy modified three missiles for the shoot-down, and defense officials say the first successfully hit the target about 3:30 universal time Thursday. The Pentagon says that land, air, sea and space-based sensors confirmed the intercept.

The dying satellite stopped communicating with controllers on Earth shortly after it was launched 14 months ago, and it began to slowly fall. The shoot-down was intended to destroy a tank aboard the craft holding 450 kilograms of a toxic fuel called hydrazine.

Here’s a couple of pictures from the missile launch (courtesy Fox News):

This is the aft VLS system on the cruiser, where the missile was launched from.

Here’s the missile just after being fired.

Congrats to the Navy for a job well done.