In February, for the first time, two satellites - a defunct Russian military satellite and an operational, privately owned Indium satellite - collided in orbit. The collision destroyed the Iridium-33 satellite, one of 66 in Iridium Satellite LLC's operational communications constellation. The company on March 9 announced that it had replaced the lost satellite with one of its on-orbit spares and that the incident had resulted in only a minor and temporary degradation of service. The collision also created debris that may impact other satellites, potentially causing additional damage.
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