Russian Satellite Explosion Spreads Hundreds Of Debris In Low Earth Orbit

Illustration of debris from the Resurs-P1 explosion (photo: dock. NASA)

JAKARTA Resurs-P1, Russia's remote sensing satellite, experienced a low-intensity explosion on June 26. Although not large, this explosion has created hundreds of pieces of garbage in orbit. LeoLabs, a provider of commercial tracking services, reported this incident for the first time. Although the cause is not yet known, LeoLabs believes that this explosion occurred due to collisions or problems from within its spacecraft. There were more than a hundred pieces of debris that were tracked by ground-based sensors, but the debris is thought to be more than that. LeoLabs estimates that the Resurs-P1 fraction reaches 250 debris within an altitude of 500 kilometers from Earth. "Although most debris clouds have not been thoroughly analyzed, our initial assessment concluded that the most likely cause of such events was a low-intensity explosion," LeoLabs said via LinkedIn on July 3. The company added that the Resurs-P1 explosion could be triggered by external excitations such as small space debris or the failure of the propulsion system. Although it exploded, the satellite was not completely destroyed.

Sybilla Technologies, a Polish space observation company, also observed the Resurs-P1 explosion. Reporting from Spacenews, the company reports that the main satellite has not moved and is rotating for a period of two to three seconds. This Russian satellite explosion did not attack astronauts or other space objects, but remains dangerous in the future. Hundreds of debris The REsurs-P1 is currently at the same altitude as the International Space Station (ISS). In addition, there is also a Tiangong Space Station belonging to China and several operational satellites from various countries. All of these debris will be in low Earth Orbits (LEO) for several weeks or months until finally decaying in the atmosphere.