There is a cloud of Russian space debris in the sky.
The 18th Space Defense Squadron of the U.S. Space Force said on Tuesday that an Earth-orbiting object broke up on April 15. The squadron said that 16 pieces of space debris are currently being tracked.
Anatoly Zak, who runs RussianSpaceWeb.com, said that object #32398 was an ullage motor from a space tug that helped deliver three Russian GLONASS satellites. Russia has a version of the gps navigation system.
The upper stage of the Russian Proton rocket had two small ullage motors, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and satellite tracker who is based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The booster fuel is positioned in the tanks properly for engine restarts if the rocket stages are accelerated slightly. You can't rely on gravity to pull the propellant down.
There are currently 64 SOZ motors in Earth's space, and they are known as the Proton upper-stage ullage motors. He said that the acronym is short for "Sistema Obespecheniya Zapuska."
The SOZ motor doesn't use up all their propellant when they fire. They have an unfortunate tendency to go bang years or decades later, leaving a bunch of debris in a highly elliptical circle. At least 54 SOZ motors have exploded.
The SOZ motor that blew up had been racing around Earth in a highly elliptical path, getting as close as 241 miles (388 kilometers) and as far away as 19,092 miles (33,100 km) in a single day.
He wrote that the debris event was predictable and that it was still very unfortunate.
Satellite operators and mission planners face a growing problem with space junk. The European Space Agency estimates that there are at least 36,500 pieces of debris around Earth. According to the European Space Agency, Earth has about 1 million objects with diameters between 0.4 inches and 4 inches.
Russia added to the debris population with a widely condemned anti-satellite (ASAT) test in November 2021. The nation destroyed one of its own defunct satellites with a missile, spawning a new debris field in the same orbital neighborhood as the International Space Station (ISS). ISS operators have had to conduct engine burns to dodge the Russian ASAT debris.
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