* Astronomy

The loss of Cosmos 1275 has always been looked upon as the best contender for a satellite being destroyed due to the impact of an untracked piece of space debris: this hypothesis has been given support by a reported Russian statement. However, the case has yet to be proven. Cosmos 1275 was a military navigation satellite in the Parus series which was launched into the regular 83 degrees, near-circular 1,000 km orbit on June 4 1981. The satellite carried no propellant for orbital changes or attitude control, the latter being provided using a gravity gradient boom. Therefore, there appeared to be nothing internal to the satellite which could have caused the destructive explosion which took place on July 24 1981 at 23.51 GMT. More than 300 pieces of debris were catalogued from the breakup, the majority still being in orbit, with many more pieces of debris being too small to track.
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Kosmos 1275 was launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome aboard a Cosmos rocket on the 4th June, 1981.
It formed part of a 6-satellite Soviet military navigation system position in orbital slots spaced 30 degrees apart.