{"id":358802,"date":"2026-04-01T16:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T16:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/358802\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T16:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T16:02:08","slug":"satellite-spies-spacex-starlink-before-it-breaks-apart-photo-of-the-day-for-april-1-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/358802\/","title":{"rendered":"Satellite spies SpaceX Starlink before it breaks apart photo of the day for April 1, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Breaking up is never easy. That’s definitely the case for this SpaceX <\/a>Starlink spacecraft, which underwent a “fragmentation event” on March 29, 2026.<\/p>\n

Today’s image shows the spacecraft weeks prior to it breaking apart.<\/p>\n

What is it?<\/p>\n

SpaceX described the fragmentation event on its Starlink X feed<\/a>, writing:<\/p>\n

“On Sunday, March 29, Starlink<\/a> satellite 34343 experienced an anomaly on-orbit, resulting in loss of communications with the satellite at ~560 km above Earth. Latest analysis shows the event poses no new risk to the @Space_Station<\/a>, its crew, or to the upcoming launch of NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission. We will continue to monitor the satellite along with any trackable debris and coordinate with @NASA<\/a> and the @USSpaceForce<\/a>. <\/p>\n

“The event also posed no new risk to this morning’s Transporter-16 mission, which was designed to avoid Starlink with payload deploys well above or well below the constellation. The SpaceX and Starlink teams are actively working to determine [the] root cause and will rapidly implement any necessary corrective actions.”<\/p>\n

Why is it amazing?<\/p>\n

Today’s image of Starlink satellite 34343 was captured by HEO Robotics on Feb. 14, 2026. HEO posted the image to X<\/a><\/p>\n

HEO is now working toward imaging the current state of the SpaceX unit after its fragmentation.<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

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Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breaking up is never easy. That’s definitely the case for this SpaceX Starlink spacecraft, which underwent a “fragmentation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-358802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}