The Joint Space Operations Center has detected an object that orbited alongside a U.S. Air Force weather satellite and service branch officials have confirmed that the vehicle has broken up in orbit, Space News reported Monday.
Brian Berger writes the retired Lockheed Martin-built Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight 12 satellite follows the breakup of the DMSP F-13 in February 2015.
Causes of the DMSP F-12’s breakup will be difficult to determine because of the lack of telemetry from the satellite which would have helped the assessment of the incident, the report noted.
The service branch has five DMSP satellites in service including the DMSP F-18 and DMSP F-14 which were launched in 2009 and 1997, respectively.
