Space Debris Catalog

China destroyed its own Fengyun-1C weather satellite using a kinetic kill vehicle at 865 km altitude, creating the largest single debris-generating event in history.

The first accidental hypervelocity collision between two intact satellites, occurring at 789 km altitude at a relative velocity of ~11.7 km/s.

Russia destroyed the defunct Cosmos 1408 satellite at ~480 km altitude, generating debris that threatened the ISS crew who had to shelter in their spacecraft.

The International Space Station performed a debris avoidance maneuver to dodge fragments from the 2007 Chinese ASAT test, highlighting the long-term consequences of that event.

India destroyed the Microsat-R satellite at ~300 km altitude. The low altitude meant most debris decayed relatively quickly, though some fragments were lofted higher.

The Russian BLITS laser ranging satellite was struck by a small debris fragment, altering its spin and rendering it non-functional, demonstrating vulnerability of operational satellites.

The French Cerise military satellite was struck by a fragment from an Ariane-1 H-10 upper stage that had exploded 10 years earlier, severing its gravity gradient boom.

The University of Surrey's RemoveDEBRIS mission successfully demonstrated net capture technology in orbit, catching a deployed cubesat target in a landmark active debris removal test.

Two defunct objects—the IRAS telescope and the GGSE-4 payload—passed within an estimated 12 meters of each other, narrowly avoiding what would have been a catastrophic collision generating thousands of fragments.

SpaceX reported a significant increase in collision avoidance maneuvers for its Starlink constellation, executing thousands of automated maneuvers per month as LEO becomes increasingly congested.