HomeBreakup eventsFengyun-1C (Chinese ASAT)

Anti-satellite test · 2007-01-11

Fengyun-1C (Chinese ASAT)

China's 2007 anti-satellite test against its own Fengyun-1C weather satellite is the single worst debris-generating event in history, creating more than 3,000 tracked fragments at ~865 km — an altitude where atmospheric drag is so weak the debris will persist for decades to centuries. It remains the largest single source of cataloged orbital debris.

Last updated: · Catalog refreshed daily.

Isolate this debris field on the live globe →

Opens Space Junk View, hides everything else, and frames the surviving tracked fragments of Fengyun-1C (Chinese ASAT) 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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