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One of China’s Long March 6A rockets has broken apart in low-Earth orbit and created a debris cloud made up of hundreds of pieces, according to multiple debris-tracking space entities.
The rocket was launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center on Tuesday to deliver 18 G60 satellites into orbit, marking the first deployment for Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology group’s Thousand Launch constellation.
The satellite mega-constellation will eventually include 1,296 satellites, with plans to increase the capacity to around 14,000 to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. The US Space Command, a branch of the US Department of Defense, confirmed the launch of the rocket on Thursday.
“USSPACECOM has not identified any immediate threats and continues to conduct routine connectivity assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain,” according to a United States Space Command spokesperson.
The US Space Command is continuing to track the debris and provide information to NASA.
“There was no immediate threat to the International Space Station observed as a result of this outage,” said Rob Margetta, public affairs officer at NASA headquarters.
The amount of tracked debris changed by the hour Thursday, starting with more than 50 tracked by the Slingshot Aerospace Global Sensor Network. Then, US Space Command said it was tracking more than 300 pieces.
Now, radar data from tracking organization LeoLabs has confirmed that the event resulted in at least 700 and possibly more than 900 pieces of debris.
‘Significant hazard’
The rocket is believed to have broken up at 503 miles (810 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, and the debris poses a “significant hazard to (low-Earth orbit) constellations” below 497 miles (800 kilometers) altitude, according to Slingshot.
For reference, the International Space Station orbits about 254 miles (408 kilometers) above Earth.
Slingshot’s Horus detection systems, which provide satellite tracking in low-Earth orbit, yielded “a series of unexpected bright objects moving along the same orbital path as the rocket body and the G60 satellites it deployed.”
The risks of the debris cloud will not be known until experts have had a chance to fully analyze it, which could take another day or two. And the reason for the rocket break is still unknown.
Because the Chinese satellites were delivered into an orbit around the Earth’s poles, rather than an equatorial orbit, they will make a “real package with other objects that are not in polar orbit” like two cars colliding in an intersection, said John L. Crasidis, Professor Moog with. Innovation within the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Everything travels in low-Earth orbit at 17,500 miles per hour, Crasidis said.
“The worst case scenario is when any part of the debris field collides with something that’s moving around the equator,” he said. “That’s a T-bone crossing situation. Imagine two cars going 17,000 MPH and crashing at a T-bone intersection. Of course, that’s bad. All in all, anything in its path will remain in poor condition.”
Future risks of space debris
Due to the height at which the break occurred, the debris is likely to remain in place for several years, and some may remain for years, but it is difficult to predict how long without knowing what shape is on the debris, Crasidis said.
This is the second time one of these rocket bodies has had a significant breakup event in low-Earth orbit, according to Victoria Heath, associate director of marketing and communications for LeoLabs.
Another rocket body from Mars 6A exploded in a region of low-Earth orbit densely populated with satellites on November 12, 2022, scattering 500-plus fragments of debris between 198 miles and 932 miles (320 and 1,500 kilometers ) and increased the risk of collision with satellites, especially in the middle of the debris cloud, according to LeoLabs.
The company analyzed and concluded that the November 2022 event was triggered by an issue with the spacecraft’s propulsion system, rather than a rupture due to the rocket colliding with another object.
There are nearly 1,000 derelict rocket bodies in low-Earth orbit today, according to LeoLabs, and that number only continues to grow as launches ramp up and more countries focus on their space ambitions.
“If even a fraction of the launches needed to generate this Chinese mega-constellation generated as much debris as this first launch, the result would be a significant addition to the space debris population in (low-Earth orbit),” said Audrey Schaffer, vice president of strategy and policy for Slingshot Aerospace, in a statement.
“Events like this highlight the importance of adhering to existing space debris mitigation guidelines to reduce the creation of new space debris and highlight the need for robust space domain awareness capabilities to detect newly launched space objects , quickly tracked and cataloged so that they can be used. screening for possible combinations.”
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