Someone blew up one of our satellites?

[GIThruster]

http://www.space.com/28709-military-wea ... 7610706465

Oh yeah, I believe the story that it was a "sudden spike in temperature". Must have been global warming.

[GIThruster]

It's obviously the evil space aliens:

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/03/u ... argentina/

[Tom Ligon]

I can see it being a short and consequent battery failure.

A long time ago I remember testing some slipring assemblies, with very special brushes. The customer would not tell us what they were for (and in fact, the customer would not tell us who they were, and if you called their number, they answered only with first names). We did know they had to be tested in a vacuum and at two revolutions per day, carrying significant DC power.

So, something operating in space, powered by solar panels, that had an orbit of 12 hours.

Considering what a bad cell phone battery will do, I'd guess an age-related internal short in the battery, a wiring harness chaffed thru, or maybe a micrometeorite hit caused a short.

[GIThruster]

Or maybe just as we reminded the Chinese what we can do when we blasted an old sat from an Aegis cruiser, we decided to remind Putin to play nice.

But I prefer the Bug Eyed Monster (BEM) theory. More inherent drama.

[choff]

The Cerians are retaliating for us sending the Dawn probe into their territory.

[KitemanSA]

LocMar wanted a more distant target for their 30kW laser?