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Daily brief · Wednesday, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

28 Oct: COSMOS 2612 (Russia) is holding station about 504 km from ICEYE-X36 (USA), a possible breakup, with 4 new pieces catalogued from USA 32 (launched 1988) and a satellite from Singapore is closing on a US military satellite.

Top stories

  1. Shadowing another country's satellite

    Holding a steady distance in another satellite's orbit takes deliberate station-keeping. Same orbit plane and height, at a steady distance, since 27 Oct or before.

  2. Possible breakup

    New pieces from an old launch can mean something broke up, or old debris catalogued late. A burst of new pieces from an old launch usually means something broke up recently, or that older debris was only now catalogued..

  3. Closing on another country's military satellite

    In nearly the same orbit and getting closer. Most approaches are drift; the pair page shows the history.

  4. Closing on another country's military satellite

    In nearly the same orbit and getting closer. Most approaches are drift; the pair page shows the history.

Over conflict zones in the next 24 hours

2

4 or more of one country's working military satellites, from different launches, over places where fighting was recorded this year, at once. Passes are fixed by orbits days ahead, so a cluster is usually a coincidence.

Closing on another country's satellite

1

In nearly the same orbit as another country's satellite, and getting closer, with at least one of the two still working.

Military satellites that changed orbit

1

Confirmed by the next public orbit update.

Routine

Also

  • STARLINK-1309 predicted to re-enter around 23:10 UTC (US), uncertain by hours.

Built 29 Oct, 00:30 UTC from the event log: what overhead24 detected that day, in its own words. Sources: Space-Track.org (USSPACECOM) (orbit data and re-entries); GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org/space/gcat) (owners and military class, CC BY 4.0); Launch Library 2 (The Space Devs) (launches); UCDP (where fighting was recorded, CC BY 4.0). Worked out from public orbit data, accurate to a few kilometres and less the older the data. Not for collision avoidance, navigation or targeting. Satellites pass over every country: being overhead says nothing about what a satellite is doing.

Earlier briefs

2026-11-022026-11-012026-10-312026-10-302026-10-292026-10-272026-10-262026-10-252026-10-242026-10-232026-10-222026-10-212026-10-202026-10-19