HomeBreakup eventsNimbus 2 Agena stage (1966)

FRAGMENTATION · 1966-05-15

Nimbus 2 Agena stage (1966)

The Agena upper stage from the 1966 Nimbus 2 launch fragmented in a ~1,000 km polar orbit, one of the oldest debris clouds still tracked. Its long-lived fragments share the same crowded sun-synchronous region used by today's Earth-observation fleet.

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Opens Space Junk View, hides everything else, and frames the surviving tracked fragments of Nimbus 2 Agena stage (1966) 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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