Kosmos 2251
Kosmos 2251 was a Russian Strela-2M military communications satellite. It was launched into low Earth orbit on 16 June 1993 at 04:17 UTC from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome (Site 132/1) using a Kosmos-3M rocket, and it weighed about 900 kg.
The Strela-2M satellites, including Kosmos 2251, were designed for military communications and KAUR-1 spacecraft had no propulsion system, so they could not deorbit on their own. The mission was planned for about five years, but Kosmos 2251 was reported to have stopped functioning in 1995.
On 10 February 2009 at 16:56 UTC, Kosmos 2251 collided with Iridium 33 in a high-profile space collision in low Earth orbit. Both satellites were destroyed, and a large amount of debris was created, raising concerns about space junk. At the time, the satellites were in a sun-synchronous or near-polar low Earth orbit with an inclination of about 74 degrees and an altitude around 780–820 kilometers, completing an orbit roughly every 101 minutes.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:43 (CET).