The Chinese rocket broke apart, creating 300 pieces of trackable debris in low Earth orbit (representative)
New Delhi:
China’s Long March 6A rocket broke apart, creating more than 300 pieces of trackable debris in low Earth orbit, after reaching a major milestone with the launch of 18 Qianfan satellites, the US Space Command (USSPACECOM) said Today.
The 18 satellites were part of the first batch intended to set up China’s “own version of Elon Musk’s Starlink”, called the Qianfan (“Thousand Sails”) broadband network.
The satellites were launched on Tuesday on the Long March 6A rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China’s Shanxi province.
The satellites were designed and built by the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai.
While the rocket successfully delivered the satellites to an altitude of about 500 miles, the upper stage broke apart shortly afterwards. The breakup created a cloud of debris that can be tracked around Earth, USSPACECOM said.
“USSPACECOM can confirm the disintegration of a Long March 6A rocket launched on August 6, 2024, resulting in more than 300 pieces of trackable debris in low Earth orbit,” the organization said in a statement posted on the social media platform X.com on Friday.
“USSPACECOM has not observed any immediate threats and continues to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the security and sustainability of the space domain,” it added.
China launched the Qianfan mega-constellation project in 2023 to provide more comprehensive and high-quality communications services for domestic users.
The Qianfan network, developed by Shanghai-based company SpaceSail, will reportedly create a long-term network of more than 15,000 LEO widescreen multimedia satellites, with 108 satellites to be launched this year and 648 satellites soon . End of 2025.
By 2027, the constellation aims to provide global network coverage, eventually including 15,000 satellites providing integrated services such as direct mobile connections by 2030, Global Times reports.
On the other hand, SpaceX’s Starlink currently has more than 6,000 satellites in space and has more than 3 million customers in 100 countries.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
