A spy satellite is plummeting down to earth, we are all doomed

I am a former military satellite communications controller. Satellites usually have two controllers:

1. one controls the bird itself, that is, where it goes to, etc. plus whatever on-board systems are needed to make this happen.

2. another one controls what goes through it, this is usually called the payload. The payload could be communications, cameras, etc.

God know how it is done now, but for bulk communications satellites the US Air Force had control of the bird itself, and the US Army controlled the payload. It gave me an interesting front row seat to see some interesting things about satellites that most people usually don't give a crap about. For example, even at 22,300 miles away, geosynchronous satellites move a little bit and trace a figure "8." Or that at certain times of the year the sun would be in a spot where its radiation would challenge the radiation emitted by the satellite.

Another cool thing we learned is that those satellites use small rockets to maneuver in space, and that here is a finite amount of fuel for these rockets. Run out of fuel? The satellite may eventually fall off the sky. Low orbit satellites will probably drop a hell of a lot faster. If the spacecraft loses electrical power it turns into a brick.

Sometime over the weekend we were told that a US spy satellite is bricked and is expected to drop. The problem? There is no way to know where it is going to crash.

My first reaction was that we would replay the Skylab panic. Then I started noticing something funny in the news:

As it got reported, the news got more and more pessimistic. Here's a small sample of the headlines:

Google News search for "spy satellite lost power"