Shooting down of satellite doesn't worry space station crew

HOUSTON, Texas -- Military plans to shoot down a damaged U.S. spy satellite carrying toxic fuel will not concern the crew aboard the international space station, commander Peggy Whitson said Saturday.
The military hopes to smash the satellite as soon as next week -- just before it enters Earth's atmosphere -- with a missile fired from a Navy cruiser in the northern Pacific Ocean.
It was unclear how close the satellite will be to the space station when it is shot down. NASA referred questions to the Defense Department, which did not immediately return a message seeking clarification.
Whitson, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and French astronaut Leopold Eyharts will still be in orbit 215 miles above Earth when the satellite is targeted. The satellite will be about 150 miles up when the shot is fired. Watch how the Navy plans to blast the satellite »
Whitson said NASA and the Department of Defense "love the station crew" and would not put them in harm's way.
"So, no, we're not worried about it," she said in a news conference with the 10-person shuttle-station crew.
Atlantis and its seven astronauts will be safely back on Earth before the Pentagon takes aim. NASA plans to open up the backup landing site in California to increase chances of an on-time landing next Wednesday even if weather is a problem in Florida.
Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would be expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.