Sunday, August 9, 2026
Long March 6A upper stage breaks up after Qianfan launch
A Long March 6A rocket launched 18 Qianfan (Thousand Sails) broadband satellites into near-polar orbit from Taiyuan on August 6, lifting the constellation to 256 satellites, and its upper stage broke apart in orbit shortly afterward. Space-tracking firms Slingshot Aerospace and LeoLabs cataloged debris counts ranging from roughly 300 to more than 900 fragments; it is the second time a Long March 6A upper stage has broken up on orbit, after a similar incident in November 2022, and the cause has not been disclosed.
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