2009 satellite collision

The 2009 satellite collision was the first accidental hypervelocity collision between two intact artificial satellites in low Earth orbit. It occurred on February 10, 2009, 16:56 UTC, when Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 collided at a speed of 42,120 km/h (11.70 km/s; 26,170 mph) and an altitude of 789 kilometres (490 mi) above the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia.

Kosmos-2251 was a 950-kilogram (2,094 lb) Russian Strela military communications satellite. It was launched on a Russian Kosmos-3M carrier rocket on June 16, 1993. It had been deactivated prior to the collision, and remained in orbit as space debris. Iridium 33 was a 560-kilogram (1,235 lb) commercial US-built satellite and was part of the commercial satellite phone Iridium constellation of 66 communications satellites. It was launched on September 14, 1997, atop a Russian Proton rocket.

The collision destroyed both Iridium 33 (owned by Iridium Communications Inc.) and Kosmos 2251 (owned by the Russian Space Forces). The Iridium satellite was operational at the time of the collision. Kosmos-2251 was launched on June 16, 1993, and went out of service two years later, in 1995, according to Gen. Yakushin. It had no propulsion system, and was no longer actively controlled.

Several smaller collisions had occurred previously, during rendezvous attempts or the intentional destruction of a satellite, including the DART satellite colliding with MUBLCOM, and three collisions involving the manned Mir space station, during docking attempts by Progress M-24, Progress M-34, and Soyuz TM-17, but these were all low-velocity collisions. In 1996, the Cerise satellite collided with space debris. There have been eight known high-speed collisions in all, most of which were only noticed long after they occurred.

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