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Congress

Space Debris Is A Hot Topic In D.C. This Week

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 9, 2014
Filed under , , ,

Air Force to award ‘Space Fence’ contract to track orbital debris, Washington Post
“Hundreds of thousands of pieces of man-made debris are floating around out there, the detritus of more than 50 years of spaceflight. There have been chunks of dead satellites and spent rocket boosters — even a glove that an astronaut dropped in 1965 and a spatula that escaped from a space shuttle in 2006.”
Do We Need a Space Traffic Cop?
“There are currently three agencies that play a primary role in tracking and mitigation of orbital debris that may be hazardous to operational satellites or life and property on Earth, if the debris is large enough upon reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. The Subcommittee will explore the roles and responsibilities of the Department of Defense, FAA, and FCC in policing orbital debris, what authorities are currently granted by Congress to federal agencies, and how they coordinate these activities.”
Subcommittee Discusses Space Traffic Management
“Members raised a number of questions such as whether space traffic management requires an international approach; what liability agencies in charge of space traffic management should assume if their actions or lack thereof result in a collision and creation of debris; and what information is needed before Congress would move forward with legislation on these issues.”
Hearing Charter
Hearing: Space Traffic Management: How to Prevent a Real Life “Gravity”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

27 responses to “Space Debris Is A Hot Topic In D.C. This Week”

  1. Victor G. D. de Moraes says:
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    I want to see who will foot the bill for cleaning …

    • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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      Responsibility belongs to the ‘launching state’ under the “Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects”.

      Article II

      A launching State shall be absolutely liable to pay compensation for damage caused by its space object on the surface of the earth or to aircraft flight.

      Article III

      In the event of damage being caused elsewhere than on the surface of the earth to a space object of one launching State or to persons or property on board such a space object by a space object of another launching State, the latter shall be liable only if the damage is due to its fault or the fault of persons for whom it is responsible.

      http://www.oosa.unvienna.or

      • Victor G. D. de Moraes says:
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        Yes, good, but in practice this only concerns the “damage caused by”, ie after the accident. But cleaning, nothing says … It may be a way, for indeed who should pay to bring back to the ground objects (many unidentified origin) are the states that have launched. U.S. and Russia, predominantly. But pay?

        • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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          We know who put the big objects up. If your object hit something you have to pay for both the damage and the clearing up. Cheaper just to pay for clearing up your object.

          • SouthwestExGOP says:
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            The operative phrase is “you have to pay” since a Russian derelict satellite hit an operating Iridium satellite – how much was paid in damages? Nothing? Oh, how does anyone enforce the “you have to pay” clause?
            Now, once some country demonstrates that it has the determination to do something, by doing something, likely commercial companies could pool some funds to help pay for cleanup. But the initial mission will have to be paid for by a government.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            Communication satellites may be private sector but spy satellites are government owned. The governments will have to pay to prevent their old satellites damaging their new satellites.

            Money can be collected from commercial firms in the same way taxes are collected. Ensuring the money arrives at the clear-up fund is the difficult bit.

            Satellite launching organisations are either government owned or licensed by governments. The launch firms can be ordered not to launch the satellites form a third country until it pays for the clearing of its previous satellites.

            Dealing with old upper stages and inter-stages will have to be considered a cost of

            the launch business and regulations written so it is included in their prices.

      • hikingmike says:
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        Thanks for the link!

        How do you know who is responsible for the small piece of debris that shoots a hole through ISS? How is this proven? When satellites stop working, how do they know if it was due to a small piece of space debris?

        I suppose you need to build really good tracking systems and program to be able to place blame, which doesn’t seem ideal.

        • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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          NORAD already operates a system for tracking things in space.

          • hikingmike says:
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            Is NORAD’s tracking system the accepted authority and impact blame assigner for the world? I didn’t read the full Convention text but I’m willing to bet that’s not in there.

            Yes I know that we’re doing it, but what about other countries? Space junk and the requirement for a NORAD type tracking system is an artificial barrier to entry put in place by the past space-going countries. Countries that want to do more in space or start out in space wouldn’t like that unfairness.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            The Russians probably have their own system. They also have their own satellites to protect.

            The Chinese can shoot satellites down so they may a tracking system as well.

          • hikingmike says:
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            You still haven’t addressed my point so I’ll just come out and say it. Space junk negatively affects everyone that wants to do something in space, but this is particularly unfair to countries that are new to space and want to have more activity and a bigger presence because they did not put any of the space junk up there. They have a valid grievance. If there wasn’t space junk, they wouldn’t need to be worried about having something of theirs destroyed, and wouldn’t need to have a tracking system just so they can assign blame (if they are lucky enough to know who is responsible from their tracking data or other data volunteered by other countries) if they need to.

            I didn’t think of this until now but I’ll also add that it’s a waste. The world really only needs one good tracking system for non-military purposes, right? So some money could be saved here as non-military tracking needs increase.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            The only grievance you are mentioning is new comers having to set up their own tracking system. Since there is no rule requiring them to set up a junk tracking system it is not a valid grievance.

          • hikingmike says:
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            Hmm. Who says there needs to be a rule for a grievance to be valid? I believe there were valid grievances voiced when China shot up one of their own satellites causing lots of space junk, and no rule on that.
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

            Maybe it would help if you tell me about your point of view here.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            There is nothing complex about what I am saying. (I just answered the question.)

            However you hikingmike are playing some sort of bait and switch game.

          • hikingmike says:
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            There’s nothing complicated about what I’m saying either, and I don’t know about any bait and switch in my comments. I think it would be perfectly natural for other countries that want to get into space to be a little upset at all the space junk, and the fact they need to set up tracking systems to be able to do space activities. They would have no chance at assigning blame without a tracking system. They are punished for the actions of the early space activities. I think that’s a valid reason for a grievance.

            Sure there is no rule that they need to set up a tracking system, but if they don’t, there is a chance that NORAD or Russia wouldn’t help them out if some space junk destroyed something they sent up. For example – they send up a satellite, space junk destroys it, NORAD is the only one that might know what hit it and it was American sourced space junk. They might not come out and say “ok it was our junk, we’re sorry and we’ll pay up”. The country would never know. What is their recourse? To either set up a tracking system themselves, or somehow armor their satellites which is not an option at all.

            I guess if I were them, I would push for some international tracking system with accountability so they don’t have to rely on the goodness and openness of those space powers that have tracking systems and are the same ones that put up most of the space junk.

    • David Sims says:
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      There are a thousand euphemisms for taxation, and you can expect to see most of them in any space-trash legislation. The corporations profit. Their workers pay for the corporate reckless disregard of the environment through taxes. In a sense, this whole space-trash initiative is merely another way to squeeze the 99% for the greater gain of the 1%. You don’t seriously expect anything mankind can do will scour 200 billion cubic kilometers for millions of items zipping around the Earth, in as many different orbits, at 7 or 8 kilometers per second, do you? I mean really: think about it. It’s worse than picking up all the stones in the sands of the Sahara.

      • Victor G. D. de Moraes says:
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        * laughs *

        Really, it’s hard. And extremely challenging. For the future of space exploration depends on it. The orbit of the Earth can become extremely dangerous.

        At least that mitigates the production of more space debris going forward.

        No new trash!

        • hikingmike says:
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          There should be more international scandal whenever space debris is created – like when China shot their satellite with a missile but even louder. UN should make a statement, all that, ICC even maybe, WTO? Even dropping a tool should get a little shaming press. We may need to make a space debris treaty, which would be a lot easier than a climate change treaty. US, Russia, EU, China, India, Japan get it together, and everyone else sign it too.

  2. John Adley says:
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    Will have junk explosion when everyone can afford to throw something into space. Maybe SpaceX can develop a cheap trash collector before diving into the junk creating business?

  3. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    Could they hand this off to a Federally Funded Research and Development organization, such as Aerospace Corporation? That might allow some more innovative thinking instead of bureaucratic arguing over budget.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Sure. The SLS of garbage cleanup.

      Why not call Waster Management? They do a pretty good job in my neighborhood!

      • DTARS says:
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        I don’t know or but this is a very important topic which needs to be addressed in a smart way. Has a construction guy it is very important that you clear the crap out of the way to make a safe clean construction.

        Today we use material runs to ISS to pay for rocket development. Shouldnt we use something similar with cleanup Leo program?

        Couldn’t used first stages with extra fuel go garbage and salvage hunting??

    • SouthwestExGOP says:
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      One thing we need to do is stop talking about this problem and start doing something about it. This is like the problem of invasive species here on Earth – it is far cheaper and easier to do something about it before the problem gets out of hand.

    • DTARS says:
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      Shouldn’t cleanup be open to competition?? Not just handed to somebody on a silver plater???

      We charge you triple to get the junk up there and even more to get it down??

      I think it is very important how this is done.

  4. David Sims says:
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    A kiloton of debris scattered over 200 billion cubic kilometers of space. In bits as small as a glove or a spoon. All of it flying around at eight kilometers per second. Rendezvous and velocity matching are going to be pains in the trash collector’s butt. (Because his wallet is going to be very sore.) Good luck with that. Personally, I think that blowhards in Congress and NASA are just grandstanding. The only way to keep space clean is not to dirty it up in the first place.

  5. dogstar29 says:
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    In LEO orbital decay will get rid of most of the junk if we can just stop producing more. In medium and high orbits the main problem is simply tracking all the junk. It isn’t that dense so generally it can be avoided if you know where i is.