NASA' s Orbital Debris Program Office this week said the number of debris officially cataloged from the 2007 Chinese the Fengyun-1C spacecraft anti-satellite test has now surpassed 3000. By mid-September 2010, the tally had reached 3037, of which 97% remained in Earth 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 2000 km.
NASA' s Orbital Debris Program Office this summer said that while over 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 US and 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.
According to NASA the Top 10 space junk producing missions are:
Name Year of Breakup Debris items (as of July 2010)
Fengyun-1C 2007 2,841
Cosmos 2251 2009 1,267
STEP 2 1996 713
Iridium 33 2009 521
Cosmos 2421 2008 509
SPOT 1 1986 492
OV2-1/LCS 1965 473
Nimbus 4 1970 374
TES 2001 370
CBERS 1 2000 343
In September the Air Force sent up its Space-Based Space Surveillance satellite to monitor space junk.
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