The Chinese government confirmed on Monday that a spent Long March rocket broke up and scattered debris in a near-Earth orbit close to many of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites. According to the US Space Force, the Long March 6A rocket was between 500 to 700km (310 to 435 miles) from Earth when it disintegrated into more than 50 fragments.
foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said “As far as we know, the relevant incident will not affect the Chinese space station or the International Space Station,”
a Beijing-based space scientist said the weekend incident was most likely to have been unintentional because the debris could threaten China’s own space assets, including its brand new space station.
“The debris will fall back to Earth over the next few years, and the chance they will hit the space station is low. But I don’t think anyone would be willing to add to the risk, however small it is,” said the researcher, who asked not to be named because of the issue’s sensitivity.
