4,300 tonnes of space junk and rising: Satellite breakup adds to woes

A large communications satellite has broken up in orbit, affecting users in Europe, Central Africa, West Asia, Asia, and Australia, and adding to the growing swarm of space junk clouding our planet’s neighbourhood.

The Intelsat 33e satellite provided broadband communication from a point some 35,000km above the Indian Ocean, in a geostationary orbit around the equator.