On Jan. 11, 2007, a Chinese antisat-ellite missile test completely fragmented a Chinese target satellite into millions of pieces of debris - nearly 800 debris fragments 10 centimeters or larger, nearly 40,000 debris fragments between 1 and 10 centimeters, and some 2 million fragments of 1 millimeter or larger. On Feb. 10, 2009, the operational Iridium 33 and decommissioned Kosmos-2251 satellites collided at a speed of 42,120 kilometers per hour, destroying both satellites. In July 2011, more than 2,000 large debris fragments resulting from this collision were detected.
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