Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 collision (2009)

The Iridium-Cosmos collision is the accidental crash, in low Earth orbit, between Iridium 33, an active American communications satellite, and Cosmos 2251, a defunct Russian military satellite. On February 10, 2009, they met about 800 kilometers above Siberia at a relative speed of more than 11 kilometers per second. Both spacecraft were shattered, and more than 1,600 fragments had been cataloged by the end of 2009. Iridium quickly replaced the lost satellite with an in-orbit spare, and service suffered little. On the legal side, nothing happened. The 1972 Liability Convention provides, for damage caused in space, fault-based liability between launching states (Article III). The United States and Russia could have traded arguments: an inactive satellite that could no longer maneuver, against an active one whose operator might have dodged. No claim was filed. Nobody could establish fault, tracking data was not shared, and neither state, probably, wanted to set a precedent that could be turned against it. Insurers take two things from it. In practice the 1972 regime offers no usable recourse after an in-orbit collision, which leaves the loss with the insured and its property insurer, with no workable subrogation. And in-orbit liability is underwritten on a risk with no case law, which weighs on price far more than the still low frequency of collisions.