Radars operated by LeoLabs, a company that tracks space debris, have detected anywhere from dozens to hundreds of fragments from a Chinese Long March 6C rocket launched this week. The debris ended up in an orbit at 500–520 km altitude, where more than 8,500 SpaceX Starlink satellites operate, PCMag reports.
The Long March 6C rocket successfully placed seven satellites into orbit this week, but its upper stage broke apart in low Earth orbit, according to data from the California-based company LeoLabs. A LeoLabs radar site in Western Australia first detected the debris on August 26. “We rapidly confirmed the event on a follow-up pass over our New Zealand radar site. Based on our current assessment, this event generated anywhere from tens to hundreds of fragments,” the company said.
LeoLabs has not yet completed its analysis or published a final assessment. Still, the company noted that based on similar fragmentation events, debris from this incident could pose a collision risk to spacecraft operating at altitudes up to 1,000 km. The rocket body itself sits at an altitude of 396 to 482 km, while the debris, according to images published by LeoLabs, is at 500 to 520 km.
That altitude range matters for Starlink. This year SpaceX began moving more than 4,000 of its satellites to a 480 km orbit, and more than 8,500 satellites now operate in the 460–490 km range — the densest part of a constellation that totals more than 11,000 satellites overall.
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Every Starlink satellite carries onboard thrusters that let it maneuver to avoid collisions. Between December 2025 and May 2026, the fleet performed more than 207,000 such maneuvers, or roughly 40 per satellite. SpaceX has also built a collision-avoidance system called Stargaze, which uses sensors on Starlink satellites to detect and track other objects in orbit.
This is not the first time a Chinese rocket has left debris in orbit. Long March 6A launches shed fragments in both 2022 and 2024. LeoLabs estimates the fragments from this latest rocket will take several years to deorbit. Until then, satellite operators will need to take extra precautions to avoid collisions. The company said it plans to release more detailed information on the scale of the event in the coming days.
