HomeBreakup eventsBriz-M upper stage (2006 explosion)

EXPLOSION · 2007-02-19

Briz-M upper stage (2006 explosion)

The Briz-M stage from the Feb 2006 Arabsat launch failed with a full propellant load and exploded a year later, creating a large, widely-dispersed debris cloud. It was among the first Briz-M breakups to prompt international concern over the stage's passivation.

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Breakup events like this are why low Earth orbit is now crowded with debris. Space Junk View tracks all 31,328 cataloged objects — including roughly 10,229 pieces of debris — and lets you isolate a single event's fragment cloud to see exactly where its wreckage went. See the full breakup-events hub and our space-debris statistics.

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