China’s Spent Rockets Are Turning Low Earth Orbit Into a Debris Minefield
China is leaving a growing trail of spent rocket stages in low Earth orbit, and the pace is picking up.
A new report warns this practice is increasing the risk of collisions for both military and commercial satellites operating in an already crowded region of space.
The analysis from space monitoring firm LeoLabs, provided to Breaking Defense, found that from January 2021 to January 2025 China has abandoned 51 spent rocket bodies in LEO above 650 kilometers (about 404 miles) in altitude, more than doubling the number for the previous five years to bring the total to 96.
During that period, Beijing accounted for 86 percent of the global number of rocket bodies left in LEO, nearly seven times more than the rest of the world combined, it adds. By contrast, the US left four, and Russia, only one.
Even more importantly for calculations of potential debris creation, the analysis shows that the “amount of R/B mass abandoned above 650 km from China has more than tripled,” rising from 98,000 kilograms to 305,000 kilograms. This accounts for “98 [percent] of the global increase in abandoned R/B mass is from China meaning China has left over 40x the amount of abandoned R/B mass in long-lived orbits in LEO than rest of the world combined.”
Darren McKnight, author of the LeoLabs study, said a major reason for the large jump in mass is because China uses bigger rockets than most other nations for launching its LEO satellites. The more massive a space object, the more debris it will create if it breaks up of its own accord or it smashes into another space object.
China dumping more rocket bodies in space, endangering low Earth orbit satellites: Report – Breaking Defense https://t.co/v3sWXTHYHN
— US NCVA (@NcvaUs) June 26, 2026
It turns out these discarded rocket bodies are especially dangerous. Many still contain leftover fuel, which can trigger explosions after they are abandoned, which can turn a single piece of debris into space shrapnel.
At the end of last year, the trend lines did not look promising. China is the only major space power moving sharply in the wrong direction on upper‑stage abandonment, with the mass of Chinese abandoned rocket stages in long‑lived orbits jumping from under 100 metric tons to around 250+ metric tons in roughly five years.
China, on the other hand, frequently abandons upper stages in orbit. China launched 21 of the 26 hazardous new rocket bodies over the last 21 months, each averaging more than 4 metric tons (8,800 pounds). Two more came from US launchers, one from Russia, one from India, and one from Iran.
This trend is likely to continue as China steps up deployment of two megaconstellations—Guowang and Thousand Sails—with thousands of communications satellites in low-Earth orbit. Launches of these constellations began last year. The Guowang and Thousand Sails satellites are relatively small and likely capable of maneuvering out of the way of space debris, although China has not disclosed their exact capabilities.
However, most of the rockets used for Guowang and Thousand Sails launches have left their upper stages in orbit. McKnight said nine upper stages China has abandoned after launching Guowang and Thousand Sails satellites will stay in orbit for more than 25 years, violating the international guidelines.
It will take hundreds of rockets to fully populate China’s two major megaconstellations.
Meanwhile, China’s top-secret space plane just released another unknown object over Earth.
The clandestine spacecraft has now deployed at least nine payloads around our planet since 2022 — and we don’t know what any of them really are.
The Shenlong, or “divine dragon,” space plane is a reusable, robotic spacecraft that China has repeatedly launched into low Earth orbit (LEO) on board vertical rockets, before reentering the atmosphere for a horizontal runway landing — similar to the iconic spacecraft from NASA’s now-defunct Space Shuttle program.
The space plane has never been photographed by otuisde nations, so we have no clear idea what it looks like or how large it is. Officials from China’s space sector have yet to reveal any meaningful information about its design or purpose.
Space tension rises as China’s Shenlong space plane releases unknown object tracked by global monitoring systems.
#Shenlong #China https://t.co/KAWyiAwS4r
— GEEKSPIN (@geekspinco) June 25, 2026
China’s pattern of treating low Earth orbit like a dumping ground at the same time it is expanding potential military space capabilities should raise serious concerns for anyone relying on satellite infrastructure — which, at this point, is pretty much everyone.
The combination of negligent debris practices, rapid megaconstellation deployment, and a lack of transparency is not just bad stewardship, it is also a growing strategic and environmental risk that we can ill afford to ignore.
source legalinsurrection.com