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An illustration of satellites breaking up in Earth orbit. | Credit: Mark Garlick\/Science Photo Library\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
A Russian satellite once used to inspect other spacecraft appears to have disintegrated in a graveyard orbit high above the Earth, according to ground-based imagery.<\/p>\n
The Luch\/Olymp satellite, launched in 2014, is one of two secretive military Russian satellites that have been used to stalk spacecraft from the US<\/a> and others in the geostationary belt (GEO), around 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above the equator. Luch\/Olymp (NORAD catalog number 40258) had recently been decommissioned and sent into a graveyard orbit a few hundred miles above GEO in October 2025.<\/p>\n Now, however, optical ground-based imagery<\/a> from Swiss space situational awareness company s2A systems shows what appears to be a fragmentation event as the satellite disintegrates and begins to tumble. Additional objects have been spotted around the satellite following the fragmentation event at 06:09 GMT on Jan. 30, according to a post on social media platform X.<\/p>\n Astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell told Space.com that the fragmentation of Luch\/Olymp may have been caused by an external debris impact, which may be a worrying event.<\/p>\n McDowell says the disintegration may possibly be due to a debris hit, since internal energy sources, such as fuel and batteries, should have been vented when it was retired.<\/p>\n While a failure to properly passivate the spacecraft could not be ruled out, McDowell notes that a possible debris impact could suggest that the space debris environment in GEO, and the graveyard orbit above it, is worse than previously believed.<\/p>\n While the first Luch\/Olymp satellite is now out of action, Russia has another such asset, having launched a second Luch\/Olymp inspector satellite in 2023. Russia, the U.S.<\/a> and China<\/a> have in recent years used satellites around geostationary orbit to get close to and inspect other countries\u2019 satellites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[133444,88908,133443,61,60,11830,82,2634],"class_list":{"0":"post-273513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-earth-orbit","9":"tag-geostationary-orbit","10":"tag-graveyard-orbit","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-satellites","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space-debris"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}