The Pentagon announced Thursday that a Navy warship has been tasked with shooting down a failing United States spy satellite that, if left alone, was expected to hit Earth within weeks.

In a joint news conference, NASA administrator Michael Griffin and Gen. James Cartwright, the No. 2 officer at the Defense Department, announced that an SM-3 missile, designed to hit inbound ballistic missiles, will be fired from a Navy cruiser or destroyer as early as this Thursday to obliterate the inbound spacecraft. The idea is to break apart the satellite to rid it of toxic fuel onboard by smashing its tank, which is the largest intact piece left. If successful, it would be the first direct U.S. test against a satellite since 1985, when an F-15 climbed to 80,000 ft. to fire a three-stage missile at a defunct solar-monitoring platform in low-Earth orbit. More…

The odds were in favor of the satellite crashing in the ocean after losing much of its sensitive equipment during reentry. Perhaps the chance to use our ballistic defenses against a real-life target was just too good to pass up.