SM-3 just after launch to destroy the USA-193 satellite (Credits: US Navy).
A Elaine M. Grossman article on spacemart.com addresses the scenario of a controlled destruction of UARS satellite using a military missile, like US did on February 4, 2008, to prevent release of toxic hydrazine from the dead USA-193 satellite.
The NASA spokeswoman did not include a Standard Missile 3 intercept or similar intervention as an option for the UARS system, noting that the lack of rocket fuel on the orbiter makes its debris less of a danger than the expiring military satellite posed three years ago.
“USA-193 was destroyed because it contained a large amount of hydrazine propellant that was expected to reach the ground,” Dickey said in a written response to questions. “UARS has no hydrazine remaining on board.”
UARS is a massive Earth observation satellite, which is expected to perform and uncontrolled reentry in Earth atmosphere by September 23. You can track UARS in real time at n2yo.com.
![A trajectory analysis that used a computational fluid dynamics approach to determine the likely position and velocity histories of the foam (Credits: NASA Ref [1] p61).](http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/fluid-dynamics-trajectory-analysis-50x50.jpg)
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