Re: Spy satellite unscheduled de-orbit



thomsona@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
I agree that, if there's anything to the "hazardous materials" bit,
it's likely to be hydrazine and N2O4.

A slight caveat is that back in 2002 NASA was told to transfer 7 kg of
Pu238 to an "undisclosed national security agency." (A correspondent
recalls seeing that the transfer had been canceled.)

http://www.space.com/news/nasa_plutonium_020724.html

NASA bought a unfueled Topaz-II space reactor from the Russians after the cold war ended which could generate 30-50 kW of power: http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/GLTRS/browse.pl?1998/CR-195423.html

Pat
.