The incident is thought to have involved a 12-year-old satellite belonging to the US company Iridium and a defunct Russian Cosmossatellite that was put into orbit in 1993.
这起事故是关于美国铱公司12年前发射的一颗卫星，以及俄罗斯1993年发射的已经失效的宇宙卫星。
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Some of the blame can even be divvied up; last year an operational Iridium communications satellite collided with a spent Russian Cosmos spacecraft, spawning nearly 2,000 pieces of smaller debris.
Industry officials say Iridium has identified the Russian craft as a Cosmos series satellite launched in 1993, weighing more than a ton and including an onboard nuclear reactor.