Could X-37 take out errant Galaxy 15 Satellite?

[sftommy]

Given it's long duration and thus many orbits and assuming is has some sort of thrusters, could an orbit be calc'd that would result in a low speed impact such that both vehicles plunged into earth's atmosphere with minimal debris?

I'm sure DoD stilll has some plans for X-37 but it could be validation to a long historied program.

 

[Gravity_Ray]

It could. I can soft dock with it or grapple it and then bring it into the atmosphere to burn up.

 

[MeteorWayne]

No it probably couldn't. The deltaV is too extreme. Galaxy 15 is in Geostationary orbit, 22,235 miles up.

The X-37 in in LEO, 250 miles up.

Can't get there, missions to GSO usually have a seperate rocket stage to boost them to that altitude via a transer orbit and one or more subsequent firings to refine the orbit.

 

[Gravity_Ray]

As part of its Space Support mission goals, X-37 was designed to rendezvous with friendly satellites to refuel them, or to replace failed solar arrays using a robotic arm. Its payload could also support Space Control (Defensive Counter-Space, Offensive Counter-Space), Force Enhancement and Force Application.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37

Although the bird nominally works in LEO, nothing in its development that I read prevents it from a suicide mission to GSO. It can be launched with an Atlas V to LEO and have a second stage to boost its orbit to GSO. Grapple and then head back to the atmosphere. Well maybe one of the Boeing engineers around here can shut me down.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Deorbiting a sat from GEO just isn't done AFAIK. At the end of their operational life, they are boosted upward into a long lasting orbit above, IIRC. There's too much stuff down below to risk deorbiting...

 

[Astro_Robert]

I don't know, the documents mentioning robotic grappling and refueling were from 2001 timeframe. That is a long time ago for a program this old. It is quite likely that along the numerous program extensions certain scope elements (probably those) wre dropped.

On the other hand, this type of technology has been brought up before regarding a proposed robotic Hubble servicing mission. Hubble was eventually serviced by astronauts, but for some amount of development and a healthy program schedule, somebody probably could launch something to grapple and refuel or shift the orbit of a satelite, such as Galaxy 15, or perhaps even some dying European satellite in a lower orbit...

In any case, I seriously doubt that there is a vehicle prepared to undertake such a mission, or a vehicle that could be quickly modified for it.

 

[Gravity_Ray]

Well the OP did say "what if". I think the answer is "it’s possible".

Obviously this is not what the X37B was designed for which is basically pop up surveillance and in my opinion targeting to kill launchers and some enemy satellites with kinetic or possibly laser weapons (I know the government said no, but I wouldn’t put it past them).