Most Items in Orbit Are Breakup Debris, NASA Says
Breakup debris makes up 52.6 percent of the cataloged items in orbit, with payloads another 24.4 percent, according to NASA's orbital debris newsletter Wednesday. It said propulsion-related events and deliberate actions are the biggest cause of breakups, though 25.2 percent…
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of breakup causes are unknown. The agency said propulsion-related breakups, which cause 44.2 percent of known satellite breakups, include catastrophic malfunctions during orbital injection or maneuvers, residual propellant explosions and failures of active attitude control systems.