The largest space debris incident in history occurred earlier this year, on January 11, when the People's Republic of China successfully completed an antisatellite (ASAT) test 537 miles (865 km) above the Earth's surface. Using a ground-based, medium-size ballistic missile, the Chinese destroyed one of their aging weather satellites, the Fengyun-1C. The result: now more than 900 pieces of debris larger than 5 inches (10 cm), another 35,000 objects larger than a half inch (1 cm), and more than one million pieces the size of a grain of sand or slightly larger are suspended in orbit. According to NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office at the Johnson Space Center, the destruction of the 1,650 pound (749 kg) spacecraft resulted in a debris cloud extending from an altitude of about 125 miles (200 km) to higher than 2,292 miles (3,850 km), thus encompassing all low Earth orbits (LEO).
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