A military satellite exploded in orbit in early February, breaking into 43 parts, Space News has confirmed.

The DMSP-F13 was a 20-year-old weather satellite that the Air Force and Navy used to make forecasts as part of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. Although still in operation, the sat was relegated to backup status in 2006. At the time of its explosion, it was the oldest still-operating weather satellite of its fleet.

The reason for the explosion was said to be a sudden spike in temperature, which caused power systems to fail that left ground operators unable to control the satellite. The Air Force says its investigation is ongoing.

The military told Space News that because DMSP-F13 had been phased out as a main satellite, the impact on its forecasting abilities is minimal. Plus, this isn't the first such incident for the DMSP fleet. The 2004 explosion of DMSP-F11, for example, created 56 pieces of debris in orbit.

NASA keeps a chronology of other events contributing to the growing problem of space debris in low earth orbit. In 1964, one of the first satellite accidents even reported happened when the boosters of a Transit 5BN3 satellite failed, releasing plutonium and debris over the Indian Ocean. In 1965, the U.S. Titan 3C created hundreds of pieces of debris after blowing up in orbit. NASA estimates that 30 of those pieces remain.

In addition, in 2009, the first known collision between two satellites took place when the Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 satellites collided in orbit, creating more than 1,000 pieces of debris. A collision between the Fermi Gamma Ray observatory and a defunct spy satellite was narrowly averted in 2012.

Source: Space News

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