YAOGAN-50 02 broke up on July 24, 2026

Why it is shown

• What the detector saw: no step in the parent’s own orbit; it found the breakup from its pieces.
• How it was confirmed: by 12 pieces catalogued in the parent’s orbital plane.
• The time shown: between Jul 20, 2026, 4:53 AM and Jul 28, 2026, 8:17 AM UTC, the detector’s own estimate.

The detector’s own reasons, as it wrote them:

• 12 fresh pieces under launch 2026-051 (100571, 100568, 100564, 100566, 100570, 100572, 100574, 100565, 100567, 100569, 100573, 100575), numbered above the catalogue's mark and first published after the cloud's first set, in the plane of 68196 (distance 0.4, 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.6, 0.2, 0.4, 0.3, 0.5, 0.5, 0.3, 0.3 to the nearest plane of the launch's bodies), their semi-major axes centred 9.3 km from its, moving 4.7 m/s from it: a breakup of 68196, attributed from the pieces with no step seen on it
• propagated back, 8 pieces converge on 68196 at 2026-07-24 05:25, sigma 5101 min, missing it by 1662.2 km; each piece's closest approach to 68196: 8 of 8 cross it in the window, their median at 2026-07-24 06:35, half of them within 74.4 h of it and three quarters within 85.0 h (robust spread 110.2 h), the pieces 40.7 days old at it
• 12 new bodies under 2026-051 in 14 days against a background of 0.50 (2 in the year before): Poisson tail 3.2e-13, a burst
• 12 pieces in the plane of parent 68196 (distance under 3), moving 4.7 m/s, the semi-major axes spread over 4.9 km