Ravi, PavithraPavithraRaviFrueh, CarolinCarolinFruehSchildknecht, ThomasThomasSchildknecht0000-0001-7731-18172024-10-092024-10-092021https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/handle/20.500.12422/67079Three Centaur upper stage fragmentation events – 2009-047B, 2014-055B, 2018-079B – that took place in 2018and 2019 are studied. Ephemerides and Two-Line Ele-ments (TLEs) of the fragments, from three different datasources, are propagated to calculate the breakup epoch.Additionally, techniques developed by Tan and Reynolds[22] to obtain Gabbard plots, velocity & angular pertur-bations of the fragments, and event intensities, are ap-plied to the Centaur upper stage events. From the results,hypotheses regarding the causes of the events are postu-lated. The Centaur fragmentations stray from breakuppatterns exhibited by ’typical’ upper stage fragmenta-tions such as those pertaining to the historic explosiveDelta upper stage events. Only one of the three events,2018-079B, appears to have fragmented due to the com-bustion of leftover propellant. 2009-047B, on the otherhand, likely endured a structural failure – inferred fromclustered fragments and low fragment spreading speeds.A torus-shaped fragment distribution is observed for the2014-055B event, suggesting a collision with a smallpiece of debris may have taken place.en500 - Science::520 - Astronomyconference_item10.48350/164942