COSMOS 2251 DEB
NORAD 35453· Debris· LEO
Live · TLE epoch 2026-06-05 01:26 UTC
Orbit class
LEO — Low Earth Orbit (circular, < 2,000 km)
Operator
Russia / Soviet Union (military)
Country
—
Manufacturer
—
Launched
—
Mass
—
Apogee
817 km
Perigee
719 km
Inclination
74.01°
Period
1.67 h
Debris origin · satellite collision
Kosmos-2251 was a defunct Russian Strela-2M military communications satellite, inactive since the mid-1990s. On 10 February 2009 it collided with the active US Iridium 33 satellite at about 789 km over northern Siberia — the first accidental hypervelocity collision between two intact satellites. The Kosmos-2251 cloud is the larger of the two, with roughly 1,600 catalogued fragments.
Parent object
Kosmos-2251
Event date
Feb 10, 2009
Altitude
~789 km
Part of the GLONASS constellation · this satellite is one of 636
Russian satellite navigation system. ~24 active sats in MEO at ~19,100 km.
Related satellites
Sources & further reading
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