Space debris in near-Earth orbit

Debris: Fengyun-1C

Fragments of the Chinese weather satellite Fengyun-1C, destroyed in an anti-satellite test in January 2007 - the largest debris cloud in the catalogue, at around 800 km, where the air is too thin to clear it quickly

On 11 January 2007 China destroyed its own weather satellite Fengyun-1C with a missile, as a test. The satellite was at about 860 km, where the air is thin enough that the fragments will stay up for decades - it remains the single largest debris-generating event on record, and its pieces are still the biggest group in this catalogue.

Further reading: orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov