US says Chinese rocket broke into hundreds of pieces in orbit
Aug 10, 2024
Washington D.C. [US], August 10: CNN reported on August 10 that the US Space Command confirmed, after many space debris tracking organizations said that one of China's Long March 6A rockets broke into hundreds of pieces in low Earth orbit.
The rocket was launched from the Thai Nguyen Satellite Launch Center (Son Tay) on August 6 to put 18 G60 satellites into orbit, marking the first deployment for the Thousand Sails satellite system of Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology Company (SSST).
It is expected that this system will gradually have 1,296 satellites and expand to about 14,000 satellites to compete with the Starlink satellite system of SpaceX (USA).
SSST did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, the US Space Command (USSPACECOM) confirmed that the Chinese rocket had broken up.
"USSPACECOM has not observed any immediate threats and continues to conduct regular joint assessments for the safety and sustainability of the space domain," a USSSPACECOM spokesperson said, adding that the service continues to monitor debris and provide information to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
According to NASA official Rob Margetta, there is currently no threat to the International Space Station (ISS).
The amount of debris tracked has varied, starting with more than 50 pieces of debris being tracked by the Slingshot Aerospace Global Sensor Network. Later, USSPACECOM said it was tracking more than 300 pieces of debris.
Radar data from the US tracking organization LeoLabs later confirmed that the incident had created at least 700 pieces of debris and there was a possibility that there would be more than 900 pieces of debris.
According to Slingshot Aerospace, the rocket broke up at an altitude of 810 km above the Earth's surface and the debris posed a significant hazard to low-Earth orbit satellite systems at altitudes below 800 km.
A Long March 6A rocket in 2022 also broke up in space, creating hundreds of pieces of debris. The incident has drawn criticism from Western countries and space sustainability advocates, who say Beijing should have better control over how it disposes of spent rocket bodies, according to Reuters.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
