Long March 6C Upper Stage Breaks Apart Days After Rideshare Launch
A Chinese Long March 6C rocket upper stage has fragmented in low Earth orbit, generating what tracking firm LeoLabs estimates as tens to hundreds of pieces of debris. The breakup occurred less than two days after the same stage delivered a seven-satellite rideshare mission, adding a new debris cloud to an already congested orbital environment.
The Long March 6C launched late Aug. 24 Eastern, at 0321 UTC on Aug. 25, from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China. The two-stage, kerosene-fueled rocket was provided by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, a major subsidiary of state-owned CASC, China's main space contractor. The mission delivered seven satellites into orbit.
LeoLabs' Multi-Object Detection tool first flagged numerous objects near the rocket body, catalogued as NORAD ID 100472, international designation 2026-195H, during a pass over the company's radar site in Western Australia. A follow-up pass over its New Zealand site confirmed the event. LeoLabs detected the fragmentation at 2:30 am UTC on Aug. 27, when the object's orbit measured 396 kilometers at perigee and 482 kilometers at apogee.
"We estimate tens to hundreds of fragments were generated," LeoLabs stated in an Aug. 28 post on X. The company expects the resulting debris to reenter within a few years given the low altitude of the stage's orbit.
The event is the latest in a series of fragmentations afflicting the Long March 6 series. The first incident, in November 2022, saw the 18th Space Defense Squadron catalog 533 fragments from a Long March 6A stage by the end of January 2023. Another stage broke up into more than 700 pieces in August 2024, and other Long March 6A stages have created debris clouds without breaking up. Some of these events occurred at much higher altitudes, meaning the debris could take decades or longer to deorbit. The Long March 6A uses a slightly larger diameter second stage than the 6C, but both use a single YF-115 engine powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen.
When asked about the Aug. 6, 2024 breakup, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the mission was "a peaceful use of outer space consistent with international law and universal practice" and that China had "taken necessary measures" to monitor the debris, but did not address the cause. Neither SAST, CASC, nor CNSA appears to have offered a technical explanation for any of the four prior breakups.
The fragmentation adds to a growing global space debris problem. The European Space Agency's Space Debris Office estimates there have been more than 660 break-ups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events resulting in fragmentation. The office estimates around 54,000 space objects larger than 10 centimeters are currently tracked in orbit, of which roughly 9,300 are active payloads. Below that threshold, an estimated 1.2 million objects measure between 1 and 10 centimeters, and around 140 million between 1 millimeter and 1 centimeter. These fragments are too small to catalog individually but still capable of disabling a spacecraft on impact due to orbital velocities.
China drafted standards for launch vehicle orbital stage disposal in 2023, intending to implement them in January 2024. The guidelines included deorbiting spent stages where possible, setting limits on how long stages remain in orbit, passivation to avoid explosions, and avoiding debris-creating collisions. LeoLabs will continue monitoring the debris cloud, which it expects to reenter within a few years.