HomeBreakup eventsIridium 33 (2009 collision)

On-orbit collision · 2009-02-10

Iridium 33 (2009 collision)

On 10 Feb 2009 the active Iridium 33 communications satellite collided with the defunct Russian Cosmos 2251 over Siberia at ~11.7 km/s — the first known accidental hypervelocity collision between two intact satellites. The Iridium 33 fragments are one of two debris clouds the impact produced.

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