Author: Brett Tingley

An old Soviet satellite has fragmented into multiple pieces in low Earth orbit, the latest in a string of recent breakup events that suggest satellites may be facing an increased risk of debris impacts.

The space domain awareness company LeoLabs detected a "debris generating event" in the known orbital location of the Soviet-era Meteor 2-7 weather satellite as it passed over one of their sites in Western Australia. The company said that an estimated "tens of fragments" were detected in the vicinity of the spacecraft, which launched in 1981.

The breakup of Meteor 2-7 follows on the heels of several other satellite fragmentation events in recent months, including that of the U.S. Cold-War-era spy satellite USA 32, which was confirmed to have disintegrated in September 2026. "This is the latest in a series of events we've seen over the last 6 months, LeoLabs wrote on X. "Together, they point to a worrying trend for space safety and security, and underscore the critical need for persistent sensing."

Orbital debris expert Jim Shell pointed out on X that Meteor 2-7 previously broke apart in March 2004. Shell added that the event occurred at an altitude of around 530 miles (855 kilometers), where, he said, "debris spatial density is highest."

Aside from the September breakup of USA 32, a Chinese rocket body also disintegrated in low Earth orbit (LEO) in late August 2026, according to LeoLabs. A SpaceX Starlink satellite experienced a fragmentation event just over four months earlier.

And in January 2026, a Russian "inspector" satellite disintegrated, although in a much higher geostationary orbit.

For years, experts have been warning that the ever-increasing numbers of satellites being placed into orbit are raising the risk of collisions and fragmentation events, which could have a cascading effect; as more satellites break up, they create more pieces of debris, which can then put other spacecraft at risk.

And data support those warnings. In 2005, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported it was tracking about 16,000 pieces of debris in Earth's orbit. By the time it reported the same data in 2026, ESA was tracking more than 44,000, an increase of about 180%. Even though the majority of those fragments are tiny, the high velocities at which they orbit mean they carry a lot of energy, making them capable of causing serious damage if and when they impact spacecraft.

It's not only debris that poses a risk, however. Satellites frequently have to dodge other satellites, particularly as LEO becomes ever more crowded. According to disclosures made by SpaceX in a semiannual report to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission earlier this year, each Starlink satellite performed over 40 avoidance maneuvers per year between June 1, 2025 and May 31, 2026 to get out of the way of debris or other spacecraft.

And some experts say it's only a matter of time before one of those maneuvers is unsuccessful. "I think we're heading towards a situation where there will be a collision involving an operational satellite in the constellation," Hugh Lewis, a space sustainability expert and professor of astronautics at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., previously told Space.com. "And it will not be for the lack of trying to avoid those things. It will be in spite of all those maneuvers."

Despite the increasingly worrying data and warnings from experts, however, private companies and governments worldwide continue planning to launch tens of thousands of more satellites each year in vast megaconstellations. SpaceX has repeatedly said it wants to put 1 million data center satellites in orbit, for example.

And we've already seen that the increasing amount of orbital space debris is putting astronauts at risk.

In February 2026, China experienced a brief emergency aboard its Tiangong space station when the "lifeboat" spacecraft for three of its astronauts was damaged by a piece of debris, rendering it unsafe for a return voyage. Three of the nation's astronauts (or taikonauts) were left without a lifeboat for 10 days.

United States Space Command just held its first-ever "Apollo Maneuvers" exercise, which saw spacecraft maneuvering through simulated contested environments.

U.S. Space Command combines assets and personnel from each U.S. military branch (including the U.S. Space Force) to project American military power into and from orbit. It's unclear which or how many satellites or spacecraft took place in Space Command's recent Apollo Maneuvers 2026, but the exercise involved international partners, according to a command statement. What is known is that the exercise aimed to demonstrate "dynamic on-orbit operations, validate contested logistics and advance collective space maneuver doctrine."

To put it in plain English, this means that Space Command practiced maneuvering satellites and other spacecraft in proximity to one another in a simulated conflict environment, in order to continue refining the "orbital dogfighting" that the U.S. military has been hinting at for some years.

In military terms, dogfighting refers to the close aerial combat that fighter jets engage in, pitting two or more pilots against one another in contests of flying ability and firepower.

In terms of space, this involves "objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity, and in control," according to Space Force's Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein.

“That's what we call dogfighting in space," Guetlein told attendees at a conference in 2025, according to Air & Space Forces, while speaking about Chinese satellite operations observed in 2024.

From statements that U.S. Space Command leadership gave about its recent exercise, it sounds like Apollo Maneuvers practiced just that, but in space.

"We will take some of our existing satellites and work with partners to demonstrate what are some of the requirements and capabilities to be able to maneuver for advantage, not just maneuver when you have to change your orbital position," Space Force Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, told reporters last month during a briefing at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, according to Air & Space Forces.

"The side that can maneuver persistently and at scale will set the operational rhythm in orbit."

When it comes to space and what appears to be the inevitability of a conflict extending to Earth orbit, we're still not quite sure what that will look like. But several nations have been developing capabilities and concepts for maneuvering satellites in close proximity to other satellites with the intent to destroy or disable them, or to deny or degrade their communications or intelligence-gathering capabilities.

The U.S. Space Force, in particular, has been developing an operations framework for fighting a war in space and has held multiple training exercises aimed at practicing "orbital warfare."

But Space Force and U.S. Space Command still appear to lack many of the technologies they say they need to wage such warfare. Speaking at the Space Foundation's Space Symposium in 2025, Whiting stated that that the United States needs "orbital interceptors" to fight in space.

"And what do we call these?" Whiting rhetorically asked attendees. "We call these weapons, and we need them to deter a space conflict and to be successful if we end up in such a fight."

But U.S. Space Force has ordered and executed recent missions that have demonstrated capabilities and technologies along the lines of what Whiting described.

In June 2026, for example, a Rocket Lab Electron rocket sent one of the company's Puma satellites to orbit, where it rendezvoused with a True Anomaly Jackal spacecraft that launched a month earlier. Once both spacecraft were in orbit, they maneuvered close to one another to simulate "dynamic engagements."

The mission showed Space Force's "readiness to lean on our commercial partners to deny, disrupt and counter any adversarial advantage — no matter where they try to operate in space," according to a Space Force statement.