{"id":672746,"date":"2026-09-04T19:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T19:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/672746\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T19:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T19:29:18","slug":"chinese-reconnaissance-satellite-breaks-up-in-rare-retrograde-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/672746\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese reconnaissance satellite breaks up in rare retrograde orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">HELSINKI \u2014 A Chinese satellite launched into an unusual orbit early this year has suffered an apparent fragmentation event, generating a field of debris.<\/p>\n<p>To continue reading this article:<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:18px\">Register now to read<br \/><strong>3 free articles this month.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:14px\">You\u2019ll also receive our weekly <strong>Editor\u2019s Choice, SpaceNews This Week <\/strong>and<strong> Opinions<\/strong> newsletters. Opt-out at any time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:16px\"><a href=\"#signin_modal\"><strong>Sign in to an existing account<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/author\/andrew-jones\/\" rel=\"author nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788550158_778_Andrew-jones-headshot-150x150.jpeg\" class=\"avatar avatar-120 photo wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAndrew Jones writes about China&#8217;s space industry, including civilian programs, space science and exploration, policy, and commercial developments for SpaceNews, and writes the China Report newsletter. He has additional bylines in Scientific American,&#8230;\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a class=\"author-link\" href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/author\/andrew-jones\/\" rel=\"author nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by Andrew Jones\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HELSINKI \u2014 A Chinese satellite launched into an unusual orbit early this year has suffered an apparent fragmentation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[381,59345,18,19,17,59578,133,3977,451,8912,40046],"class_list":["post-672746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-china","tag-debris","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-long-march-6a","tag-science","tag-sn","tag-space","tag-space-debris","tag-yaogan-satellites"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117214431091229464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}