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.