USA 193 Shootdown Set For Feb 21, 03:30 UTC

An anonymous reader writes "Amateur satellite watcher Ted Molczan notes that a "Notice to Airmen" (NOTAM) has been issued announcing restricted airspace for February 21, between 02:30 and 05:00 UTC, in a region near Hawaii. Stricken satellite USA 193, which the US has announced plans to shoot down, will pass over this area at about 03:30. Interestingly, this is during the totality of Wednesday's lunar eclipse, which may or may not make debris easier to observe."

I wonder

[cslax (1215816)]

if they chose the eclipse date on purpose. We'll wait and see what they say AFTER it all happens.

Re:I wonder

[dwater (72834)]

wow, the USA is powerful after all - they can arrange for the ecplise to happen on a day of their choosing. amazing.

Re:I wonder

[STrinity (723872)]

Hydrazine+lunar eclipse=zombies!

Re:Nothing to see here, move along

[Rei (128717)]

I find it quaint, the notion that the real reason they have to shoot the satellite down is because it has a tank of hydrazine onboard. Meanwhile, the Russians have let *freaking nuclear reactors* reenter our atmosphere. It's pretty transparent that they're A) trying to upstage the Chinese, and B) prevent any tech from making it into the hands of hostile parties. Even more transparent than the whole thing with A.Q. Kahn:

1) Pakistan funds its bloody nuclear program via nuclear equipment sales.
2) The international community eventually can no longer look the other way.
3) Khan steps forward. "Whoops, it was me! My bad. Every sale we made to every single country, I arranged, negotiated, and shipped everything, all with government aircraft, all of my own. No Musharraf involvement, nosiree!"
4) Bush and Musharraf: "Bad Khan! Well, that case is solved."
5) "House arrest", of the kind that lets you travel across the country. No charges pressed. Everyone wins.

Re:Nothing to see here, move along

[by Anonymous Coward]

I find it quaint, the notion that the real reason they have to shoot the satellite down is because it has a tank of hydrazine onboard. Meanwhile, the Russians have let *freaking nuclear reactors* reenter our atmosphere.

No offense, but comparing safety concerns of the US with the Russians is sort of bizarre. They are the country that used to just drop old reactor cores in the oceans after all. I honestly don't think they cared that they tossed radioactive waste across Canada any more than they cared what would happen when they build enormous nuclear reactors without containment domes. And if you think these are minor issues of environment protection then look up their involvement in the Aral Sea disaster. Russia is the antithesis [worldfrontpage.com] of environmental protection.

Re:Nothing to see here, move along

[Rei (128717)]

At least they never dared launch anything as crazy as Starfish Prime [wikipedia.org].

We are not the immaculate custodians of space that you seem to be picturing. Why, do you think, did we not shoot down the Delta II second stage that reentered in 1997 with a large amount of residual hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide onboard? We have stages with signficant amounts of toxic residual fuel reenter all the time. Why, in the same year, when we had a Delta II explode *full* on liftoff, did the Air Force tell people in the *immediate area* that the smoke posed no danger? This was a *full launch vehicle*, not just a satellite's orbital maneuvering system. Do you have any idea how much beryllium we've had reenter? We sit by as large amounts of toxic materials enter all the time. As for the hydrazine itself, what do you think happens *on its own* to pressurized tanks of highly flammable fluids on reentry? I can't think of a *single* sizable object that's survived reentry still pressuretight.

The argument is completely bogus.

Re:Nothing to see here, move along

[TapeCutter (624760)]

The reactors sent into orbit are supposedly built to withstand re-entry and a crash landing. Firing explosives at a reator in LEO and potentially spreading fairy dust everywhere is probably worse than letting it form a crater in the ground where contamination can be contained.

Regardless of the 'real reason', shooting down the hydrazine is a GoodThing(TM).

Re:Nothing to see here, move along

[oni (41625)]

It's pretty transparent that they're A) trying to upstage the Chinese, and B) prevent any tech from making it into the hands of hostile parties.

the only thing that's transparent is your bias. If they didn't try to shoot it down you'd claim it was "transparent" they didn't want to show the Chinese that they're capable of shooting it down, so they put lives at risk instead. In my opinion, you're one of those people who will criticize the US regardless of what it does.

"A) trying to upstage the Chinese." Here's a test of the system that will be used to shoot it down [youtube.com]. As you can see, they've already hit targets in space. So shooting the satellite isn't that much of a stretch. It's hardly fair to characterize it as "upstaging" anyone.

"B) prevent any tech from making it into the hands of hostile parties" yes, because it's a big secret that spy satellites contain (whispers) cameras. shhh, don't tell anyone. It'd be a disaster if Al Queda found out. They might mount the camera on a donkey and fire it into orbit with a catapult.

Come on people. Occam's razor. We know that hydrazine is actually deadly. We know that Columbia's hydrazine tanks survived reentry. Colubia's tanks were empty, but this satellite's tanks will be full. The simplest explanation is that attempting to shoot it down doesn't increase the risk, but may substantially reduce the risk to humans. There's no down side. So that's why they're doing it. Take off your tin foil hat.

Re:I wonder

[eln (21727)]

Maybe it's the senility, but I can't recall a time when the average Slashdotter was an expert in the mechanics involved in shooting down a wayward satellite.

Oddly enough...

[by Anonymous Coward]

... they're going to use a pop bottle [slashdot.org] to do the deed.

Good coverage

[BWJones (18351)]

Bruce is a fellow satellite spotter [utah.edu] also with some degree of background and in the subject matter and has good coverage here [and-still-i-persist.com].

Re:Good coverage

[Cassius Corodes (1084513)]

There is also some interesting analysis done by the Federation of American Scientists that suggests this is just an excuse to test out some anti-satellite missiles. An interesting read.

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/02/us_plans_test_of_anti-satellit.php [fas.org]

Re:Good coverage

[T-Bone-T (1048702)]

Interestingly, none of my AFROTC teachers would let us use FAS as a source in any of our briefings or papers because they only know just enough of what they shouldn't know to be dangerous.

Re:Good coverage

[twiddlingbits (707452)]

FAS always raises hell over weapons tests of any kind. What else is new.

The SM-2 to be used is actually being MODIFIED with new software to try to do the intercept. It's not certain it'll work. So I guess that makes it a test.

The eclipse likely makes it easier to spot the "target".

But at least we aren't leaving a shitload of crap to fuck up usuable orbit space like the ChiComms did in their ASAT test. This bird is coming down NOW so why not test on it. It's cheap, if it works maybe we have a new use for an existing system w/o spending millions, we clean up our own mess by shooting it down, the debris will come down (with some risk as it's smaller pieces) and not clutter the crap out of orbital space, and we trash anything secret the enemy might try to capture (assuming it survived re-entry..but why risk it?). Sounds like a bargin "test" to me.

Re:Good coverage

[KarMann (121054)]

Actually, the final target tracking is most likely done either optically or by infrared. But, as I mentioned below, the area is in broad daylight at that time, and the Moon is below the horizon, so you're still quite correct to doubt that the Moon would interfere in any way.

Re:Good coverage

[everphilski (877346)]

Now, instead of one big vaguely predictable chunk of technology falling down, we're going to have hundreds if not thousands of smaller chunks that are going to be absolutely impossible to predict their trajectory.

As someone whose day job is re-entry of large objects from near-orbital velocities I feel pretty qualified to respond to this. "vaguely predictable" is pretty generous. For the upper stage of a launch vehicle re-entering under an hour after launch (read: we know precisely where it is coming from, have the trajectory modeled, etc), there are thousands of miles in the "footprint" of the debris. And while most of it will come down in one or several big chunks, there will be a lot of scatter debris over that footprint. Now, think of something that's been in orbit for a number of years. Sure, we can observe it for a few months and try and nail the orbital parameters, but any way you slice it, it's an uncontrolled re-entry. We don't know with high precision the injection orientation, velocity, orientation, etc. That baby could have an uncertainty of 10,000 miles or more on it's footprint.

Also another note: big, dense, heavy things tend to break up very little on re-entry. They soak a lot of heat and come down hard and heavy. Big, light things like expended stages tear apart into little pieces and essentially dissipate in the atmosphere, leaving very little debris. And what debris remains, slows down very quickly, reducing scatter versus heavy pieces that just keep on flying. So there is a distinct advantage to breaking this thing into pieces. It will tear itself to shreds, versus coming down like a rock.

there's even the risk that the explosion might send pieces of debris upwards in the atmosphere, and it may even reach an altitude that will not allow it to fall back down for a very long time.

Don't believe everything you read on slashdot. What goes up must come down. The only way it will stay in orbit is if you give it the appropriate energy tangential to the surface of the earth to sustain an orbit, or more. That's it. I could shoot a bullet up into the sky right now at M=10,000, and it's either escaping the gravitational grasp of the earth or coming back to hit it. The chances of random pieces entering a stable orbit for the long term is slim. The chance of a few random pieces extending their stay? Granted, maybe for a few months to a year.

Re:Good coverage

[v1 (525388)]

I wonder what they mean by "shoot down"? It's not like an airplane, that if damaged, can't stay flying and falls to earth. If you blow up a big satellite, you end up with a bunch of little satellites, and that doesn't make them de-orbit much faster does it? I was under the understanding that blowing up stuff in space is BAD and creates a major headache more of space debris. I suppose if you really wanted to de-orbit a dead satellite you'd want to shoot a missile at it that would attach, and fire retro rockets to slow it down so it would degrade its orbit enough to hit atmosphere were it would be pulled down on its own from there.

Re:Good coverage

[RedWizzard (192002)]

They're not shooting at it to make it de-orbit, it's already de-orbiting. They are shooting at it to make sure that the hydrazine fuel tank doesn't make it down to Earth intact (or worse, almost intact).

Re:Good coverage

[XorNand (517466)]

Yeah right... The fact that it's a two-year old, highly-classified spy satellite has nothing to do with it. The *real* reason that they're spending $60M is to make sure that some fuel doesn't contaminate an acre or so of land.

Re:Good coverage

[hax0r_this (1073148)]

Well, there may be some truth to it. But like most decisions, there are a lot of things at work here:

1. Having a giant hydrazine tank land on someone's house would be a PR nightmare.

2. Having a spy satellite presumably filled with highly-classified stuff fall into the wrong hands is something They(tm) try to avoid.

3. Demonstrating to the rest of the world that we can blow their satellites into much less useful pieces is somewhat in line with the agenda of the Bush administration.

4. It can also be pointed to as a success of the missile defense program.

So I wouldn't write off the whole hydrazine tank issue entirely, but I doubt its the primary motivator.

Re:Good coverage

[Planesdragon (210349)]

AHHHHHHH!!!

I assume that anyone who can put a satellite into a stable orbit can also kill a foreign satellite. That may or may not be naive,

It is. Anyone who can fire a bullet cannot necessarily hit someone else's bullet out of the sky. (And there's no such thing as a "stable" orbit for most satellites, but that's neither here nor there.)

but it doesn't matter: Shooting at a foreign satellite is an act of war. When you do that and thereby start a war, the time of spy satellites is over anyway. The only options are not to shoot, for which you don't need the capability, or to shoot, and then the spy satellite is the least of your worries.

Spy satellites are at their most useful in a time of war. As are GPS satellites, which are used in a modern weapon system called a "JDAM", which is largely responsible for the high-precision warfare the US enjoys now.

In the event of a US-China War, expect China to shoot down GPS satellites before they even worry about air supremacy. And expect the US to launch them at a record pace.

Re:Good coverage

[RedWizzard (192002)]

Yeah right... The fact that it's a two-year old, highly-classified spy satellite has nothing to do with it. The *real* reason that they're spending $60M is to make sure that some fuel doesn't contaminate an acre or so of land.

Nothing useful in terms of spy gear is going to make it through re-entry. What might make it through re-entry is a large, resilient fuel tank containing high-toxic, probably carcinogenic, fuel. Logic dictates that if there was really something classified on the satellite that they didn't want to survive re-entry they simply would have designed it to not survive re-entry or they would have installed a self-destruct. Shooting it down at this point for the reason you're implying doesn't make sense.

Besides, if it's the gear (rather than the fuel) that concerns them then why haven't they bothered shooting down other de-orbiting sats in the past?

Three reasons

[jmichaelg (148257)]

I think there are three reasons they're spending $60 M to destroy the satellite. They are

1. They don't want a repeat of Skylab where parts landed in Australia and made us look bad.
2. If it comes down in Russia (Russia spans 11 time zones so that's not too unlikely) they don't want the Russians to be able to figure out much from the debris.
3. They want a chance to test their anti-satellite weaponry on a real target that isn't saying "Over here! I'm over here! Here I am! Yoo Hoo!"

There's actually a 4th reason - blowing stuff up is fun but they would never cop to it.

Re:Good coverage

[twiddlingbits (707452)]

Go look up Hydrazine (mono-methyl or di-methyl) and it's dangers. Tell ya what..heres the link to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomethylhydrazine [wikipedia.org] and OSHA http://www.osha.gov/dts/chemicalsampling/data/CH_255500.html [osha.gov] Think about how dangerous it is and how much of it is onboard (50kg or so). Then think about how much a good ambulance chaser aka "personal injury" lawyer could make off said dangers by suing Boeing, the Government and who knows else if someone's land was "contaminated" and there was an "injury". Then get back to me about if $60M is expensive.

Re:Good coverage

[coolmoose25 (1057210)]

I think this hydrazine thing is a red-herring. Think about it for a minute. So they say it's frozen, and in a really strong tank. But once that tank starts re-entering, the valves and hoses to it will be torn free. The heat of re-entry is going to unfreeze at least part of it. Now you've got venting ROCKET FUEL in the heat of a re-entry. I say at that point, the tank goes BOOM and there is nothing left... I think the real reason we are shooting this bird down is that it was launched in 2006 and has all our latest cool spy gadgets on it. We don't want them in an enemy's hands. So they cooked up this whole "hydrazine" problem to make it look like they are doing the world a favor. And they probably are. But I don't think its the hydrazine that is the problem here...

Answers to some of the Hydrazine questions

[usul294 (1163169)]

I had a chat with my grandfather who works on attitude control systems for commercial satellites about hydrazine. Hydrazine is used for attitude control and orbit stabilization. Since contact was never made with this USA 193, the hydrazine tank should be full. The ignition for hydrazine is heat, so all they do to fire it is have a little toaster that ignites a little bit of fuel at a time. Because the ignition source is heat, the hydrazine tank has to be incredibly well insulated to maintain a constant temperature. If the tank were to survive reentry, by being shielded by other components melting off, it would most likely rupture when it hit the ground at terminal velocity. Hydrazine is a pretty serious hazmat, and even a small concentration of that into your system will do serious, potentially permanent or even fatal damage to your lungs. Even worse, the hydrazine could ignite upon hitting the Earth and cause a small explosion, though the gas leak is more likely. If you took the surface of the earth and divided it into 1 acre chunks, I doubt more than 5% of those acres would have people in them( figure 10% of the Earth is inhabited, and large portions of that are farm) Nevertheless, a 1/20 chance of killing/permanently damaging anywhere from 1(hits near Bear Grylls in the desert) to 10,000 people(hits Rio), it certainly seems like a politically influenced decision to get rid of a potential disaster.

Re:Good coverage

[93 Escort Wagon (326346)]

The *real* reason that they're spending $60M is to make sure that some fuel doesn't contaminate an acre or so of land.

      Hey, each shot is only 60% of the National Science Foundation's annual budget. Why not?

The NSF's 2008 budget request is for 6.43 billion dollars [nsf.gov]. But hey, what's a few orders of magnitude between friends?

Re:Good coverage

[SoapBox17 (1020345)]

It is also very important to note that the missile they are shooting it with does not have a warhead. They are basically just hitting it really hard, hoping to break it into pieces.

Re:Good coverage

[icebrain (944107)]

I'd expect that shooting a satellite whose orbit is already decaying might hasten the process by a couple days (smaller pieces would generally have a lower ballistic coefficient and therefore decay faster), but not by a significant amount.

The real benefit (to the US) is that turning a big, expensive satellite with lots of classified equipment on board into a bunch of little satellites means that the expensive bits are rendered unusable and far less likely to get to the ground intact, where they can be analyzed. It also provides a good opportunity to test a new missile system, and shows the Chinese that the US can play at their game, too.

Conspriacy goldmine

[bluelip (123578)]

A super secret sat is not responding for unknown reasons. This requires a shootdown which just happens to occur during a lunar eclipse.

Wow, who gets the movie rights for this one?

Re:Conspriacy goldmine

[NickCatal (865805)]

There is only a movie if the missile moves it back and to the left

Moon hiding behind megameters of solid rock

[isomeme (177414)]

Since that time interval occurs during daylight hours near Hawaii, with the eclipsed moon (necessarily) below the horizon, I doubt the eclipse will have much effect on visibility. :)

Re:Moon hiding behind megameters of solid rock

[isomeme (177414)]

Don't be confused by the expression "shoot down". The satellite is still very high above the Earth. The cloud of debris will continue for many orbits and alternate between daylight and nighttime every 45 minutes, like every other low-orbit satellite.

Yep, but by the time the debris orbits into the Earth's shadow, about 15 minutes after the impact if my guesstimate is right, it will be entirely dark in visible wavelengths, shining only by reflected light. At that point, the lunar eclipse hinders rather than helps things, by removing a light source. And the eclipse moves out of totality within another 15 minutes after that.

Short version: The timing relative to the lunar eclipse is pure coincidence.

Unless it's a critical part of the top secret plan to propitiate Nyarlathotep and force Great Cthulhu back into an uneasy aeons-long slumber among the cyclopean ruins of R'lyeh, the fabled city of the Old Ones, looming over the black abyssal plain that lies miles below the sparkling sunlit waters of the Pacific.

In which case, I don't want to know what's in the payload of that missile.

Re:Moon hiding behind megameters of solid rock

[by Anonymous Coward]

At that point, the lunar eclipse hinders rather than helps things, by removing a light source.

Nope. Here's how it works:

1) a light source above the observer's horizon hinders visibility (can you see satellites when the Sun is up?)
2) a light source below the observer's horizon but above the satellite's horizon helps visibility.
3) a light source below both horizons doesn't do anything.

The eclipse reduces (1) compared to the full moon that would sit there otherwise, so it helps visibility by reducing a light source.

Gotta love the scores in this thread. The Dumbing Of America!

Disappointing. We need to LASER it.

[zymano (581466)]

50's called. They want their missiles back.

Re:Disappointing. We need to LASER it.

[garcia (6573)]

Disappointing. We need to LASER it.

The ill-tempered sea bass have a limited range, sorry.

...which may or may not

[Daimanta (1140543)]

This post may or may not be a way to tell you that may or may not is a totally ambigious statement. Some people may or may not notice this. I may or may not be modded Offtopic but I can also be modded +1 Funny or +1 Insightfull. However, this may or may not be the case.

Re:...which may or may not

[mfnickster (182520)]

"Interestingly, this is during the totality of Wednesday's lunar eclipse, which may or may not make debris easier to observe." ...unless it doesn't. In which case, yes, the answer is 'no.'

I'm Leonard Nimoy.

good information there!

[Bob54321 (911744)]

which may or may not make debris easier to observe

Way to limit the two choices down to two choices....

The Sorceror's Apprentice

[dpbsmith (263124)]

An airplane needs an engine to fly, and when that engine is destroyed and crashes somewhere near where you shot it down. A satellite needs no engine to fly, and when you shoot at it, it becomes thousands of little satellites, all of which continue to "fly" at 25,000 miles per hour.

I hope the people shooting at (not "down") this satellite have seen "Fantasia." In _The Sorceror's Apprentice,_ Mickey Mouse decides that the best way to deal with an out-of-control magic broom is to chop it into thousands of pieces... all of which just keep right on going, making the problem worse instead of better.

Re:The Sorceror's Apprentice

[isomeme (177414)]

The thing's low enough that all of it -- intact or in pieces -- will deorbit soon (days to weeks). And actually, smaller debris deorbits faster; there's more surface area per volume (and hence per mass), so drag from the not-quite-vacuum of the upper atmosphere decelerates small pieces faster.

Isn't it obvious?

[QuantumG (50515)]

That this is just a response to China's ASAT test of January last year?

China: you see, we can blow up your satellites!!
USA: aha! We can blow up your satellites too!!

General public: Why are they blowing up satellites?

Just the facts.

[DerekLyons (302214)]

I doubt the lunar eclipse has anything to do with it. The timing is almost certainly based on the need to get the SBX [wikipedia.org] to sea and in position (it's not exactly a speedboat), and the best orbital conditions for the shot. The location was almost certainly based on the SBX being in Hawaii and having nice long empty stretches of ocean downrange for the SM-3 missile. (Both for the booster and for the payload to fall if it misses.)

During the eclipse?

[PPH (736903)]

No doubt goats will be slaughtered, wiccans consulted, and pentagrams drawn all in the hope that our missile intercept technology will actually work in a non-staged event.

Outsource it

[Is0m0rph (819726)]

I'm surprised we didn't outsource this to China.

Re:Destroy classified items

[by Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the classified hardware/software will burn up on reentry. Their more concerned about the full tank of hydrazine that would survive a normal reentry and create a hazardous materials nightmare near a populated area. Since they suspect it is going to come down near Hawaii, I'd love to see some sort of Taco Bell stunt where TB gives away free tacos if the satellite lands in a volcano during the eclipse.

N2H2: Weapon of Mass Destruction, or delicious?

[MillionthMonkey (240664)]

Actually, the classified hardware/software will burn up on reentry. Their more concerned about the full tank of hydrazine that would survive a normal reentry and create a hazardous materials nightmare near a populated area.

That's certainly believable if you can take Deputy National Security Advisor James Jeffrey at his word:

Yesterday, Deputy National Security Advisor James Jeffrey said the satellite's tank full of hydrazine rocket propellant was the main reason the military was planning to blast the orbiter. There's a small but real risk that the hydrazine tank could rupture, releasing a "toxic gas" over a "populated area," causing a "risk to human life."

Apparently man-made objects containing hydrazine propellant frequently rain down from the sky without incident, according to rocket scientists and space security experts [wired.com] who "scoff" at this rationale. And Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright doesn't seem too impressed either. But surely our Deputy National Security Advisor knows something about hydrazine that we don't.

Now who is this man James Jeffrey, you may ask?

It took more than two months, but the White House has finally found a new deputy national security adviser. And in the end, the administration didn't have to look very far.
President Bush will appoint Ambassador James Jeffrey, a high-level State Department official who coordinates its Iran policy, according to people familiar with the matter. Jeffrey's appointment will be made later today, these people said.
In his new post, Jeffrey will be National Security Adviser Steve Hadley's No. 2 and run most of the day-to-day operations of the National Security Council. The administration's new war czar, Deputy National Security Adviser Army Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, will take part in regular deputy's meetings chaired by Jeffrey.
Jeffrey, a blunt-spoken and often-profane diplomat, will replace J.D. Crouch, an architect of the administration's controversial Iraq surge who resigned in May. Jeffrey has spent more time in Iraq than any other senior administration official. Prior to assuming his State Department post, he was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from June 2004 to March 2005, and as U.S. charge d'affaires to Iraq from March to June 2005.
A colleague of Jeffrey's said that the White House would likely prove to be a better fit than the State Department had been. The colleague noted that Jeffrey is a staunch neoconservative, which left him often sharply at odds with other high-level State Department officials. Most of the neocons who once populated the administration left their posts in recent years as the Iraq war went off the skids. At the White House, though, Jeffrey will be able to work closely with two of the other surviving neocons: Deputy National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams and David Wurmser, one of Vice President Dick Cheney's top foreign policy staffers.

Source: Wall Street Journal, [wsj.com] July 19, 2007, four months before the information in the Iran NIE would be exposed, having been known to the White House since 2006.

This guy sounds totally not full of shit at all!

Re:How Convenient

[MutantEnemy (545783)]

I find your post a little hard to follow, however with regard to space debris, the satellite is sufficiently low that all the debris is expected to deorbit relatively quickly (days or weeks).

Re:How Convenient

[drerwk (695572)]

Actually, it doesn't. Orbital mechanics guarantee that the debris will pass through the same altitude one orbit later.

Re:How Convenient

[ceoyoyo (59147)]

Okay, forget for a minute that the orbit is decaying. Whether or not a decaying orbit is "in orbit" is kind of a philosophical question.

So imagine the satellite in a stable orbit. Then you blow it up. So some pieces go flying in all directions. If you work out the orbital mechanics, every one of those pieces will be in a different orbit, but all of those orbits will pass through the point of the explosion. Caveats: this isn't true of orbits that intersect the ground first, or bits that, as you noted, get flung out of orbit altogether - that is, they achieve escape velocity. Escape velocity is awfully fast though, so that's probably not an issue here, and if something does hit escape velocity then it's not going to be a problem for us because that chunk of satellite will be GONE.

That's the reason you can't fire things into orbit with a gun (railgun, whatever), by the way. Any "orbit" you can put it into will have a point intersecting your gun. In order to put something in orbit that way you'd have to fire it out of the gun, then have a rocket on board to fire later and put it into an orbit that doesn't intersect the ground.

You can't actually escape the gravitation of anything, much less a planet. Technically, Earth, the sun, your toothbrush, will all pull on you (very weakly) no matter how far away you get. What you're thinking of is escape velocity, the speed at which you will never fall back, but continue on (slower and slower) outward forever.

Things we send into space can go a few different ways. If it's above escape velocity (Voyager, say) then it will never come back. If it's in a nice high orbit, way above the atmosphere (like geosynchronous satellites) then it will stay up for a LONG time. It will probably eventually come down, because there are always a few stray particles and things, but not for a long, long time. Things on a suborbital trajectory will come back down without circling the planet. Like SpaceShip One. Or you can have a low orbit, like spy satellites and the space shuttle. The atmosphere at that altitude is really thin, but not non-existent, so without thrusters to boost the orbit those sats will come back down, often on a fairly short time scale. The space station is fairly high (and massive) but if I recall correctly, it's orbit will decay in something less than a year without periodic boosting.

The problem with the satellite is that they've lost control. It isn't responding to commands. So it has lots of fuel (hydrazine) but the controllers have no way to fire the thrusters.

As someone else pointed out, orbital mechanics is kind of a counterintuitive thing. You'd think you could shoot things into orbit with a big enough gun, or that blowing up a satellite could boost some bits of it into stable orbits, but it turns out not to work that way. Something else weird: when you thrust in the same direction as you're traveling you slow down. You gain altitude, but you slow down - the opposite of what we normally expect. These satellite bits are speeding up (and losing altitude) due to atmospheric friction.