HomeBreakup eventsCZ-6A upper stage (2024 breakup)

FRAGMENTATION · 2024-08-06

CZ-6A upper stage (2024 breakup)

On 6 Aug 2024 the CZ-6A upper stage that lofted the first Qianfan (Thousand Sails) broadband satellites fragmented at ~800 km, producing one of the largest debris clouds in years. The fragments spread across low Earth orbit at an altitude where they will persist for decades.

Last updated: · Catalog refreshed daily.

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Opens Space Junk View, hides everything else, and frames the surviving tracked fragments of CZ-6A upper stage (2024 breakup) as they orbit.

Why it matters

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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