Space Security Index

Space Security 2011
34
2010 Development
The U.S. military continues to track and predict atmospheric reentry of space debris
During 2010, the Joint Space Operations Centre (JSpOC) used tracking data from the SSN
to predict the atmospheric reentry of 382 objects in the satellite catalog. 45 Of these, 369 were
uncontrolled reentries and 13 were controlled. e uncontrolled reentries accounted for a
total mass of approximately 60 metric tons. 46 ere were no reported incidents of damage
or injury from these reentries.
Space Security Impact
Although there were no major fragmentations in 2010, the number of cataloged objects
increased by 800, mostly due to the continued discovery and cataloging of debris from
major events in 2007 and 2009. Satellites in the critical 800-km Sun-synchronous region are
making more maneuvers than ever to avoid collisions. Some debris in LEO will reenter the
Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate in a relatively short period of time due to atmospheric
drag, but debris in orbits above 600 km will remain a threat for decades and even centuries.
us, despite growing awareness of the problem and some voluntary mitigation eorts,
space debris continues to pose an increasing threat to operational satellites and the long-term
sustainability of space activities.
Trend 1.2: Increasing awareness of space debris threats
and continued eorts to develop and implement
international measures to tackle the problem
Growing awareness of space debris threats has led to the development of a number of eorts
to decrease the amount of new debris, beginning at the national level. NASA rst issued
guidelines on limiting orbital debris in the August 1995 NASA Safety Standard 1740. In
December 2000, the U.S. government issued formal orbital debris mitigation standards for
space operators. ese standards were developed by DOD and NASA. In 2004, the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed requirements for satellite operators
to move geostationary satellites at the end of their operating life into “graveyard orbits”
some 200 to 300 km above GEO, and in 2005 new rules went into eect requiring satellite
system operators to submit orbital debris mitigation plans. 47 In 2008, NASA published
the rst edition of the Handbook for Limiting Orbital Debris, which presents the scientic
background for debris mitigation procedures. 48
e European Space Agency (ESA) initiated a space debris mitigation eort in 1998. e
ESA Space Debris Mitigation Handbook was published in 1999 and revised in 2002. 49 Also in
2002, ESA issued the European Space Debris Safety and Mitigation Standard 50 and issued
new debris mitigation guidelines in 2003. As well, the European Union’s (EU) proposed
Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities, the latest draft of which was still the subject of
international consultations by the end of 2010, calls on states to “refrain from intentional
destruction of any on-orbit space object or other harmful activities which may generate
long-lived space debris.” 51
e Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) was formed in 1993 as
an international forum aimed at harmonizing the eorts to address the problem posed by
orbital debris among various space agencies. As of 2010, the IADC is made up of ASI
(Agenzia Spaziale Italiana [Italy]), CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales [France]),
CNSA (China National Space Administration), CSA (Canadian Space Agency), DLR