Tripropellant Anti-Satellite Missile

Recent anti-satellite missile tests made me think of alternative ways.

I propose a two staged anti-satellite missile. The first stage would be a reusable liquid rocket (LOX and RP-1) which takes the second stage to the targeted altitude and returns back to the launch site and refurbished for reuse.

The second stage would be a Tripropellant rocket. In the 1960s, Rocketdyne test-fired an engine using a mixture of liquid lithium, gaseous hydrogen, and liquid fluorine to produce a specific impulse of 542 seconds, probably the highest measured specific impulse ever attained by anything except a nuclear motor. Ignition! an informal history of liquid rocket propellants (pg. 188-189)

The exhaust of such rocket would contain hydrofluoric acid and lithium which are highly corrosive to aluminum, titanium, stainless steel and glass, core structures of a satellite. The second stage of the missile would fly over the targeted satellite and spray the highly corrosive exhaust gas over it while it is orbiting. Weakening its structure as well as opaquing its solar panels. As a result rendering it useless without yielding thousands of space debris orbiting LEO.

The second stage of the missile after completing its mission by consuming all of its corrosive propellants would fall on earth. It would be made of materials that would melt during its descent to earth and hopefully do not pollute the land with its fallout.