Space junk from old China test threatens satellites

NASA' s Orbital Debris Program Office last week said the number of debris officially cataloged from the Chinese's Fengyun-1C spacecraft anti-satellite test in 2007 has now surpassed 3,000.


By mid-September 2010, the tally had reached 3,037, of which 97% remained in the Earth's orbit, posing distinct hazards to hundreds of operational satellites, the office stated.

The debris from the Fengyun-1C spacecraft represents 22% of all cataloged objects passing through low Earth orbit or below 2,000 kilometers.

NASA' s Orbital Debris Program Office this summer said that while more than 4,700 space missions have taken place worldwide since the 1960s, only 10 missions account for one-third of all cataloged objects currently in Earth orbit and of that, six of these 10 debris-producing events occurred within the past 10 years.

Debris from China, the U.S. and the former Soviet Union spacecraft make up majority of junk floating in space. Approximately 19,000 objects larger than 10 cm are known to exist, NASA stated.