EARTH ORBIT TIMELINE

Major events that have led to increased space junk or dead satellites

Kosmos 954

This Russian reconnaissance satellite re-entered the atmosphere on 24 January 1978 after it malfunctioned, scattering some of the nuclear material from its onboard reactor over Canada.

Chinese anti-satellite test

On 11 January 2007, China carried out this widely derided test, using a missile to destroy one of its own weather satellites, Fengyun-1C, which sent thousands of pieces of debris into Earth orbit.

Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251

The deactivated Russian Kosmos 2251 collided with the operational US Iridium 33 satellite on 10 February 2009. Both satellites were destroyed, creating 1,000 pieces of debris larger than ten centimetres.

Collision-avoidance manoeuvre

In 1991, Space Shuttle

Discovery had to perform the first collision-avoidance manoeuvre – commonly used on the ISS today – firing its thrusters to dodge debris from a Russian satellite.

Cerise military satellite

A piece of debris from an Ariane rocket critically damaged part of this French satellite in 1996, the first confirmed collision of human-made debris in Earth orbit.

Fengyun-1C hits the Russian BLITS nanosatellite

In 2013, a small Russian satellite called Ball Lens In The Space (BLITS) was hit by space debris from the Chinese anti-satellite test, an example of the danger of producing new space junk.

Cubesat collision

An Ecuadorian nanosatellite called Pegasus, the nation’s first-ever orbital satellite, had a glancing blow in 2013 with debris from a Soviet rocket launched in 1985, sending the satellite spinning out of control.

International Space Station window chip

In April 2016, British astronaut Tim Peake noticed a tiny chip on a window on the ISS caused by space debris. Thankfully, it posed no threat to the astronauts on the station.