CSC Engineers Join Navy Mission to Shoot Down Satellite

Client: U.S. Navy

Challenge: Enable the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) weapon system to shoot down a malfunctioning satellite.

Solution: Reengineer Aegis BMD software in just two months, adapting it to the flight characteristics of a falling satellite.

Results: On Feb. 20, 2008, the satellite was safely shot down over the Pacific Ocean. No one was injured.

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Molten hot pieces of the U.S. space station Skylab pelted Western Australia in 1979. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed.

Now, imagine what would happen if one of those pieces had been a 1,000-pound tank of highly toxic hydrazine gas, and instead of sparsely populated desert and cattle country, it struck a major metropolitan city.

The U.S. government didn't want to imagine — nor witness — that either. Which is why, when an American reconnaissance satellite malfunctioned and began to fall from orbit, President Bush tasked United States Strategic Command to determine a course of action. USSTRATCOM directed the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), together with the U.S. Navy, to destroy the toxic gas-laden satellite prior to its reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. CSC software engineers supported the mission, which successfully destroyed the satellite Feb. 20, 2008.

A short-fuse operation

To minimize the risk of debris falling in a populated area, the Navy chose to intercept the satellite just above the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. The goal was to rupture the hydrazine tank and disperse the fuel where it could not be harmful to humans. Calculations indicated that reentry would occur in late February or early March, giving the engineers less than two months to adapt the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) weapon system to the flight characteristics of a falling satellite.

When performance counts

CSC worked with Lockheed Martin systems engineers to modify Aegis BMD aboard the USS Lake Erie, which subsequently fired a Standard Missile 3 to intercept the satellite approximately 150 miles above the Earth. The 5,400-pound satellite burst into thousands of pieces, most of which burned up reentering the atmosphere.