PARIS – The sudden in-orbit acceleration of an Atlas Centaur upper stage that ostensibly had been passivated and discarded nearly 10 years before may offer clues as to why it broke apart several days later, according to orbital-debris monitoring experts.
The rocket body is one of three Centaur upper stages that mysteriously fragmented between August 2018 and April of this year, creating more than 2,300 large pieces of debris to date in geostationary orbit (GEO): http://bit.ly/2IjHy2O
Atlas . . .
To view the entire article, become a subscriber!
