HELSINKI — The upper stage of China’s Long March 6A rocket appears to be creating numerous pieces of space debris, adding to the growing problem of space debris.
The latest Long March 6A was launched on July 4 from a specially built launch pad at the Taiyuan Spaceport. The 50-meter-long, 530-ton rocket carries two kerosene-liquid oxygen stages and four solid-fuel side boosters.
The rocket, developed by the Shanghai State Academy of Aerospace Technology (SAST), successfully launched two Tianhui-5 (02) remote sensing satellites into a roughly circular orbit at an altitude of 600 kilometers from the sun.
S2a Systems, a Swiss company that develops and operates custom-built optical space surveillance systems worldwide, discovered a series of objects around the upper stage of Long March 6A.
The nature and cause of the debris is unclear. It could be related to passivation of the stage or broken insulation.
The U.S. Space Force’s Space Domain Awareness has not cataloged any debris associated with the upper stage, suggesting the objects are very small. S2a Systems notes that such clouds of objects are not seen during launches of other rockets.
Although small, the objects will be travelling at around seven kilometres per second and pose a threat to spacecraft. SAST has been contacted for comment.
S2a systems also detected about 60 objects around a Long March 6A upper stage launched in late March.
Space debris is an issue of increasing importance, potentially threatening satellites, spacecraft and space stations. There are 40,500 space debris objects larger than 10 centimetres in orbit around Earth, and 1,100,000 objects larger than 1 cm to 10 cm, according to the latest figures from June this year on space debris from ESA’s Space Debris Office estimate
According to ESA statistics, there have been more than 640 breakups, explosions, collisions or anomalous events leading to fragmentation.
Agencies, companies and others are developing ways to deal with space debris and mitigate its impact.
The apparent Long March 6A release highlights how commercial entities help with spatial situational awareness. Amateur astronomers and radio enthusiasts also help track major space events.
Upper stage problems hit space missions
A number of upper stage issues have impacted missions this week. The first Ariane 6 launch suffered from a problem where the launcher’s upper stage failed to reignite, impacting plans for the end of the mission.
A Chinese commercial Hyperbola-1 rocket lost its payload after an anomaly occurred in the fourth stage in late July.
On July 11, the upper stage engine of a Falcon 9 rocket failed, resulting in the possible loss of several Starlink satellites.
China has launched six Long March 6A rockets. The first was launched in March 2022. The upper stage of the second flight, in November of that year, broke up in a cloud of debris.
The launch vehicle is the first in China to combine the capabilities of both new Chinese kerosene and liquid oxygen as well as solid fuel.
The 3.35-meter-diameter rocket bears little resemblance to the standard 2.25-meter-diameter Long March 6. More Long March 6A launches are planned for the coming months.
China also debuted the Long March 6C in May of this year. That rocket uses the 6A core stage without side boosters.
The country plans to launch about 100 times this year, according to CASC, the parent company of SAST and China’s top space contractor. About 30 of those are planned by commercial launch service providers.