According to astrophysist and space historian Jonathan McDowell, Resurs-P1 passed over Plesetsk, a test launch base for the Russian Nudol anti-satellite system around the time of its debirs-generating event.

Note that his tweets indicate that he does not believe it to be an ASAT test.

https://x.com/planet4589/status/1806333953617334688

"Another comment on Resurs-P1; the sat is 5600 kg. That's huge. It would be crazy and very bad of the Russians to use such a massive sat as an antisatellite target. Now it may be true that the Russian govt is indeed crazy and v. bad, but still, am leaning towards 'not ASAT'."

is the whole tweet.

If Putin were doing something stupid because he can, that would sound pretty in keeping to me.

They wouldn’t just be endangering American astronauts with a belligerent ASAT test.

Putin does nothing in space. Its Roscosmos and its executives. It would be silly if someone said that Biden destroyed a satellite in space right? Putin isnt really experienced in space programs. Other people are.

An ASAT test would be authorised at the highest levels of government.

It would not be silly to say it.

IIRC Putin's First deputy prime minister is also the deputy PM for space, the director of Roscosmos being directly beneath him. Maybe Putin isn't a megalomaniac.

Why do you imply Roscosmos is an autonomous organisation not under direct control of the President? Who do you say is in charge of decisions to take military actions (fire weapons) into international regions (space) from Russia?

How often do satellites break up into clouds of orbiting debris?

Or another angle -- what percentage of satellite EOL events is "breaking up into a debris field" (vs "burning up in the atmosphere")?

More often than I would have expected:

> Space debris (also known as space junk, space pollution, space waste, space trash, space garbage, or cosmic debris) are defunct human-made objects in space – principally in Earth orbit – which no longer serve a useful function. These include derelict spacecraft (nonfunctional spacecraft and abandoned launch vehicle stages), mission-related debris, and particularly-numerous in-Earth orbit, fragmentation debris from the breakup of derelict rocket bodies and spacecraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris

> There were 190 known satellite breakups between 1961 and 2006. By 2015, the total had grown to 250 on-orbit fragmentation events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_debris_producing...

Makes me wonder what is the half-life of space debris.

> The higher the altitude, the longer the orbital debris will typically remain in Earth orbit. Debris left in orbits below 600 km normally fall back to Earth within several years. At altitudes of 800 km, the time for orbital decay is often measured in centuries. Above 1,000 km, orbital debris will normally continue circling the Earth for a thousand years or more.

https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/faq/

Struck by other smaller but high energy debris, faulty batteries that are still receiving charge from unshunted solar arrays, similar mechanical failures from attitude control systems, unused propellant leaks or ruptures. There are a lot of things that can go wrong which is why we have the 25 year rule now.

and of those how many do it on the hour "at approximately 1000 MT (1600 UTC)"?

Leolabs says the fragmentation occurred between 13:05 UTC 26 June and 00:51 UTC 27 June.

https://x.com/LeoLabs_Space/status/1806140666222948679

Orbital dynamics would say that makes it less likely to be an asat test if it was over the launch site.

asat missiles go close to straight up then get whacked by the passing satellite- not like a typical orbital launch