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Posted by Curt Welch on December 15, 2008, 3:02 am
> On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:37:16 +0000, steamer wrote:
> > --This thing's been around in one form or another for over a decade;
> > it's old Reagan era tech but it's looking a little more sophisticated
> > now. IIRC it's intended to be an *orbital* kill vehicle; i.e. if fired
> > into the right orbit all it's gotta do is line itself up and, at a
> > closing velocity of several miles per second, achieve a 'kinetic kill';
> > no explosives needed. Supposed to be launched in swarms, too.
> If it is intended to ram into its target, then why did it appear to be
> firing guns in multiple directions? The flame from the underside
> appeared to be a rocket engine; the brief flames going in other
> directions looked, and sounded like, gunfire.
Nah, I don't think so. The flames elsewhere were just stabilizer rockets
keeping it pointed upright and making it move right and left. They were
pulsing like that because they probably can't be adjusted for thrust. They
are either on (full thrust) or off (no thrust) so the control system has to
pulse them like that to keep the device stable. The film was called "hover
test" so it's clearly just a prototype to test to see if the control system
could make it hover and move back and forth - which it did very nicely
until it was turned off (or maybe just ran out of fuel).
--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/
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