On March 10, 2021, the retired U.S. weather satellite “NOAA-17” disintegrated in orbit; on March 18, the Chinese Communist satellite “Yunhai 1 02” disintegrated in orbit; on April 1, the Russian military satellite “Kosmos 2525” disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean. The picture shows the diagram of the satellite.
On March 10, 2021, the decommissioned U.S. weather satellite “NOAA-17” disintegrated in orbit.
On March 18, the Chinese Communist satellite “Yunhai 1 02” disintegrated in orbit.
On April 1, the Russian military satellite Kosmos 2525 disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean.
On April 1, the British Space Command was officially launched.
Russian military satellite disintegrates over the Pacific Ocean
The U.S. Air Force has posted data on its space-tracking website “space-track.org” indicating that a Russian military satellite fell from space orbit on April 1 and disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean later in the day, Rosatom reported on April 3.
The disintegrated Russian military satellite, named Kosmos 2525, was launched into space orbit by a Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle in March 2018, the report said. According to the U.S. Air Force, the satellite entered the Earth’s atmosphere on April 1, local time, and disintegrated over the southern Pacific Ocean at roughly 4:43 GMT that day.
As of publication, Russian authorities have not issued a statement on the specific purpose of the crashed satellite.
Communist satellite disintegrates, shatters into 21 pieces
On March 23, the U.S. Air Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron tweeted that the Chinese satellite “Yunhai 1-02” was found to have disintegrated in orbit at 7:41 p.m. on March 18, and that 21 pieces of the disintegrated satellite have been tracked. The cause of the disintegration is unknown. The satellite has the international number 2019-063A, and before its destruction was located in a circular orbit about 780 km high.
The Russian media analyzed that it is unlikely that the “Cloud Sea One 02” was attacked, in which case the satellite explosion would not have produced only 21 fragments. In addition, the satellite has been in operation for less than two years, and should not be disintegrated by its own scrapping, the more likely cause is the satellite encountered space debris impact, triggering the satellite disintegration.
Chinese netizens at home and abroad have been debating the explosion of the CCP satellite, and Chinese netizens have said bluntly, “The disintegration of the CCP satellite is not unusual, but the fact that the U.S. was able to observe the whole process is unusual. This technology!” Some Chinese netizens also said, “This foreshadows the near future of the Chinese Communist Party’s rogue state.”
The “Yunhai 1 02” satellite, a scientific exploration and experiment satellite owned by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), was developed by CASC’s Shanghai Academy of Space Technology and launched on September 25, 2019 from the Jiuquan Weide Launch Center on a “Long March 2 Ding” The satellite was launched on September 25, 2019 at Jiuquan Weide Launch Center by a “Long March II Ding” carrier rocket. According to the Chinese Communist Party, the “Cloud Sea No. 1 02” is mainly used for atmospheric and oceanic environmental elements detection, space environment detection, disaster prevention and mitigation, and scientific experiments.
At the time, the CCP official high-profile claim: “At 8:54 a.m. on September 25, 2019, China successfully launched the Cloud Sea 1 02 star into the sky at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on a Long March 2 Ding carrier rocket, and the satellite successfully entered the scheduled orbit.”
About a year later, in early August 2020, Chinese Communist Party officials had claimed that “the Long March 2d launch vehicle has won all 50 launches in 30 years.”
But records show that on Dec. 28, 2016, the CCP’s Long March 2d launch vehicle failed to launch the two main satellites into their intended orbits at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center for the Gaojing-1/01/02 satellites, and the wreckage of the rocket crashed into Henan Province.
The Communist Party’s Long March series of launch vehicles also failed repeatedly in 2020: from March to June 2020, the first flight of the Long March 7 medium launch vehicle failed, the Long March 3B launch vehicle exploded 50 seconds after liftoff of the Indonesian PALAPA-N1 satellite, the Long March 5B launch vehicle returned from orbit, and the Long March 3B launch vehicle had technical problems before launch.
Decommissioned U.S. satellite disintegrates in orbit
On March 10, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said a retired weather satellite called NOAA-17, launched in 2002, disintegrated in orbit and split into at least 16 pieces of space junk. In a March 18 tweet, the U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron said there was no indication that a collision caused the NOAA-17 satellite to disintegrate.
The debris posed little threat to the International Space Station or any other critical space equipment, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote in a statement. The statement did not provide any details of the accident.
U.S., Chinese satellites disintegrate in space
For the successive disintegration of the U.S. and Chinese satellites in space, some Internet users have speculated on the reasons for the disintegration. There are currently seven main directions.
Speculation one: the U.S. satellite for technical reasons or by satellite debris attack explosion, disintegration debris hit the Chinese satellite, resulting in the disintegration of Chinese satellites.
Speculation 2: The U.S. tested its laser weapons or unknown space weapons and destroyed its own abandoned NOAA-17 weather satellite, the debris from which hit the Chinese satellite.
Speculation 3: The U.S. satellite disintegrated for unknown reasons, and the U.S. suspected that it was attacked by the Chinese Communist Party, so it used laser weapons or unknown space weapons to attack the Chinese satellite.
Speculation 4: In order to test its laser weapons or unknown space weapons, the U.S. first destroyed its own satellite and then used the Chinese satellite to test its effectiveness.
Speculation 5: The Chinese Communist Party destroys a U.S. satellite to demonstrate its military power or for international reasons, and the U.S. returns the favor by destroying a Chinese satellite.
Conjecture 6: Both Chinese and U.S. satellites disintegrate on their own for technical reasons.
Conjecture 7: Both Chinese and American satellites were disintegrated by space junk attacks.
UK Space Command Officially Launched
Jane’s Defense Weekly reported on April 1 that the UK has established a new Space Command, which was officially launched on April 1.
The formation of Space Command was first announced in November 2020. It will lead U.K. space operations, train and develop human resources in space, and build space capabilities through the implementation of space equipment programs.
In terms of its organizational structure and the way it is integrated into the entire U.K. defense sector, this new Space Command is a joint unit under the leadership of the Royal Air Force, the Ministry of Defense said.
Prior to the establishment of Space Command, RAF Chief of Staff Sir Mike Wigston warned of the growing threat posed by Britain’s adversaries in space, adding that the U.K. needs to devote more resources to defending vital space interests. Wigston said earlier, “When deterrence fails and political discourse comes to an end, future conflict may not start in space, but I have no doubt it will soon turn to space, and may even be decided in space.”
For the British military, space is now a fully fledged domain, along with cyberspace and sea, land and air, and features prominently in the U.K.’s Defense Strategic Command Paper, released March 22, the paper said.
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