Hard on the heels of recent headlines made by China’s plans to launch a rival to the Starlink service has comes news of an incident that certainly wasn’t part of those plans.
According to the UK’s PC Mag, quoting US Space Command, the rocket carrying satellites for China’s own version of the Starlink satellite constellation and internet service has accidentally broken apart in space, creating a debris field in Earth’s orbit.
The rocket, Long March 6A, took off on Tuesday, carrying the first 18 satellites for China’s Qianfan Thousand Sails satellite constellation, and the satellites were successfully deployed. However, the upper stage to the rocket appears to have split into numerous fragments.
US Space Command, a unified combatant command of the United States Department of Defense, responsible for military operations in outer space, suggests that the incident has resulted in over 300 pieces of trackable debris in low-Earth orbit, but according to other sources this total could be much greater.
On its X account, satellite monitoring company LeoLabs says: “We’re actively monitoring and analysing the breakup event in #LEO involving a Chinese rocket body, CZ-6A. Our radar data indicates this event occurred on 6 August at ~20:10 UTC at ~810 km. It resulted in at least 700 debris fragments and potentially more than 900.”
PC Mag explains that the danger is that the debris is orbiting the Earth at around 800 kilometres, and could eventually descend to where both Starlink satellites and the International Space Station reside at 550 kilometres and 400 kilometres, respectively. It suggests that the same debris field might also endanger China’s own Qianfan satellites.
Starlink’s X account says its team is monitoring the debris and that it does not pose a significant immediate risk to the Starlink constellation. The company adds that it has designed its Starlink satellites with thrusters capable of manoeuvring them away from space junk. However, it suggests that the junk is likely to remain in space for decades due to the incident occurring at a high altitude.
In the meantime, the incident is apparently creating worries that China’s pursuit of Starlink could result in more accidents that lead to more debris fields. On the upside, reporting of this incident is at least raising awareness of potential problems relating to space debris and the need to be transparent about them.
That said, the Chinese launch provider, China Great Wall Industry Corporation, so far hasn’t commented on the debris field or what might have caused the Long March 6A rocket to break apart.
This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Morgan Wright, Chief Security Advisor at SentinelOne
