Chinese rocket breaks up in low Earth orbit, creating a cloud of space debris, says US Space Command

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One of China’s Long March 6A rockets broke up in low Earth orbit and created a cloud of debris made up of hundreds of pieces, according to several space debris tracking entities.

THE rocket launched from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center on Tuesday to place 18 G60 satellites into orbit, which marks just the first deployment of the Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology group’s Thousand Sails constellation.

THE satellite megaconstellation it will eventually include 1,296 satellites, and there are plans to expand capacity to around 14,000 to rival SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.

Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. US Space Command, a branch of the US Department of Defense, confirmed the rocket’s breakup on Thursday.

“USSPACECOM has observed no immediate threats and continues to conduct routine joint assessments to support the security and sustainability of the space domain,” according to a US Space Command spokesperson.

US Space Command continues 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 disruption,” said Rob Margetta, public affairs officer at NASA Headquarters.

The amount of debris tracked changed hourly on Thursday, starting with more than 50 tracked by Slingshot Aerospace’s 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 pieces of debris and potentially more than 900.

‘A significant danger’

The rocket is believed to have broken up 503 miles (810 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface, and the debris poses “a significant danger to constellations (in low Earth orbit)” 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 sensor systems, which provide satellite tracking in low-Earth orbit, “detected a number of unexpected bright objects moving along the same orbital path as the rocket body and the G60 satellites it deployed.” .

The true risks of the debris cloud won’t be known until experts have a chance to fully analyze it, which could take another day or two. And the reason for the rocket’s breakup remains unknown.

Because the Chinese satellites were placed in orbit around Earth’s poles rather than in an equatorial orbit, they “will have a real impact with other objects that are not in polar orbit,” such as two cars colliding at an intersection, John said. L. Crassidis, Moog Professor of Innovation in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University at Buffalo.

Everything in low Earth orbit travels at 17,500 miles per hour, Crassidis said.

“The worst case scenario is when any part of the debris field collides with something moving around the equator,” he said. “This is a case of a T-bone intersection. Imagine two cars traveling at 17,000 MPH and crashing into a T-bone intersection. Obviously, this is bad. Overall, any object in your path will still be a bad situation.”

Future risks from space debris

Given the altitude where the rupture occurred, the debris will likely remain in place for several years, and some could remain for decades, but it’s difficult to predict how long without knowing the shape of the debris, Crassidis said.

It’s the second time one of these rocket bodies has experienced a significant rupture event in low Earth orbit, according to Victoria Heath, associate director of marketing and communications at LeoLabs.

Another Long March 6A rocket body exploded in a low-Earth orbit region densely populated by satellites on November 12, 2022, and the resulting more than 500 fragments of debris were distributed between 198 miles and 932 miles (320 and 1,500 kilometers) and increased the risk of collision with satellites, especially in the center of the debris cloud, according to LeoLabs.

The company carried out an analysis and concluded that the November 2022 event was triggered by a problem related to the spacecraft’s propulsion systeminstead of fragmenting 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 increase due to the increase in launches as more countries focus on their space ambitions.

“If even a fraction of the launches needed to field this Chinese megaconstellation generate as much debris as this first launch, the result would be a notable addition to the space debris population (in low Earth orbit),” said Audrey Schaffer, vice president of strategy and policy at Slingshot Aerospace, in a declaration.

“Events like this highlight the importance of adhering to existing space debris mitigation guidelines to reduce the creation of new space debris and underscore the need for robust space domain awareness capabilities to quickly detect, track and catalog newly launched space objects to that can be selected for possible conjunctions.”

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