Proceedings of the Workshop - United Nations Office for Outer ...

Today, space debris is considered to be a problem that all space-faring nations mustendeavour to solve together, in order to maintain a safe environment for future spacedevelopment. Now, a lot of objects, such as non-used artificial satellite and broken pieces ofsatellite and rockets, are orbiting around the earth. According to one source, on the average, 1piece of debris re-enters the earth atmosphere every day. According to US estimates, the amountof debris including untrackable objects of more than 1 mm in diameter is 3,500,000 pieces.According to the report of the Space Debris Study Group of Japan on March, 1993, wecould observe about 7,000 debris of more than 10cm in diameter below 5,000km altitude in thespace orbit.The aforementioned Space Debris Study Group also disclosed that the rate of collisionbetween space debris will be increased about three times in 2005 year in comparison with 1987year.Recently, according to the study report of NASA of United States, about 20,000-70,000space debris within 800 km-1,000 km altitude on the surface of the earth was rounded around theearth.A serious accident occurred on June 5, 1969 when Japanese sailors were injured whentheir ship was struck by fragments of Soviet satellite. The following month a German ship wasstruck by space fragments of space objects (debris) while in the Atlantic Ocean.The U.S.S.R. launched a nuclear-powered satellite Cosmos 954 naval surveillancesatellite on September 18, 1977. Soviet nuclear powered satellite Cosmos 954, disintegrated overnorthern Canada on January 24, 1978, possibly due to a collision with another object, resulting inthe radioactive polluting of an area the size of Austria. 245)The danger posed by space debris is gradually increased by the lack of the developmentof modern space science and technology to predict the time of the disintegration of the nonfunctionaland abandoned satellite in outer space. What is important is that the potential for riskand damage being caused always exists due to the accidents by space debris for mankind on theearth as well as the Asian people in the Asian Pacific zone. The space debris problem can onlyeffectively be solved by international cooperation.Concluding RemarksIt is my firm opinion that only international and regional cooperation could result insolving the problem of environmental pollution, including the damage, which could be caused byspace debris, while states have to keep in mind to explore and use outer space for the benefit andin the interests of all countries.After article VI and VII in the said Space Treaty or article II and III of the LiabilityConvention, I hope that a new sentence will be inserted as follows:24 Glenn H. Reynolds and Robert P. Merges, “Outer Space”, Problems and Policy, Westview Press(1989), at 169.