Chinese rocket failure puts over 1,000 satellites at risk in space

A Chinese rocket stage that broke up in space this week created more than 700 pieces of debris and put more than 1,000 satellites and other objects in a high-traffic region of Earth’s orbit at risk of dangerous collisions, analysts said on Friday (9).

China’s state-owned Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) launched 18 internet satellites into orbit on Tuesday, the inaugural package of a communications network that will challenge SpaceX’s vast Starlink constellation.

The upper stage of the rocket carrying those satellites appears to have exploded shortly after deploying its payloads, creating a growing field of debris that U.S. space monitoring companies estimate to be at least 700 pieces so far.

SSST did not respond to a request for comment.

US space monitoring company LeoLabs said the number of pieces of debris likely exceeded 900, which would make the event one of the largest in history.

The debris cloud, created at an altitude of about 800 kilometers, will last for several years, according to many analysts.

It was unclear whether the recent breakup of the rocket’s body was caused by a collision with another object or an explosion on board unused rocket fuel.

US Space Command initially said the event had created 300 pieces of debris, which is likely to grow as the debris cloud disperses.

More than 1,100 satellites and other objects in space are at risk of collision with Chinese debris, Audrey Schaffer, vice president of strategy at space monitoring company Slingshot Aerospace, told Reuters.

“What we’re seeing now is that there are over 1,100 predicted conjunctions with miss distances of less than 5 km over the next three days,” Schaffer said, adding that roughly a third of those at-risk objects are active spacecraft that can likely be maneuvered out of the way.

Source: CNN Brasil

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