Telescope Reviews: U.S. "Decades Behind" on Space Debris Threat

I absolutely agree with you on this one! However, that is a two-way street. The U.S has to be willing to offload some of its tracking responsibilities to Russia, China, etc. and that might not be an easy thing to do, especially with its past in space superiority. It is difficult for a country who has done seemingly everything to begin trusting others to come up with ideas. The U.S. will defintely have problems offloading responsibilites mainly because it has a problem trusting others, especially with something as sensitive as protecting the active satellite population. However, the recent collision has taught everyone that the U.S. is not infallible and that it does need new expertise and strategies to prevent the next one. I do not think it will be able to get those in-house this time, especially if it takes the same road that it has been taking for 50 years with respect to this particular subject. Space has been privatized in all ways but one: satellite tracking.

The China part I agree with. I still have no idea what possessed the Chinese to willingly destroy its Fengyun 1C satellite and shatter it into thousands of pieces, thereby greatly increasing the probability for collision with another satellite. Although I cannot prove this, my suspicion is that the February 10th collision was partially caused by the U.S. focusing too much on those thousands of Fengyun 1C piceces while sacrificing the tracking of inactive intact payloads such as Cosmos 2251. In other words, the Chinese distracted the U.S. enough to miss that collision.

Although Russia too is sending massive amounts of objects into orbit, the Americans have done the same since 1958. In fact, the proportion is about equal on both sides. The U.S. never did develop a strategy of cleaning up debris either, so they are not exactly squeaky clean.

Yes and no. Although Cosmos 2251 was indeed one of the satellites that collided and it was owned and launched by Russia, it is a tough call to say that the Russians were solely responsible for the collision. I am sure that as we speak, the lawyers on all sides are still hammering out the fine details as to who exactly was responsible for the collision. I hope they are getting the help of people who truly know the satellite population and not just claiming that because they have a high rank in some organization (it happens). I also hope that whatever is finally decided, it begins an international effort on space debris mitigation and new guidelines for tracking inactive payloads, rockets and debris. It is definitely time to look past the nationalism that might have worked in the past, but is now binding our hands to tackling this problem logically.

Iridium 33 (an American satellite) was launched by Russia. Some could say that since Russia launched both satellites that it is soley responsible for the debris caused by the collision, but it is not as simple as that. Was Russia responsible for tracking both Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 for all time? Iridium 33 was the only maneuverable satellite
of the two. Iridium LLC could be liable because it did not move its satellte out of harm's way as well as ignoring the conjunction reports (see the next paragraph).

The missing (and most important) piece is satellite tracking. You rarely hear about that subject when the collision is brought up. However, satellite tracking is at the very heart of this matter because it is the only way to presently know which satellites are in danger of collision with inactive (or active) satellites.

Iridium LLC (owner of the Iridium 33 satellite) claimed that it did not trust the NORAD conjunction reports it received every week. Is it suddenly NORAD's fault the collision happened? Wow! What a mess!

The biggest problem to iron out is responsibility and liability for tracking satellites. This is the single reason why private satellite companies won't even discuss tracking inactive objects on their own. I can't blame them, since the only "law" the world has on space debris control is a U.N. Convention drawn up in 1972. By the way, that Convention doesn't even mention satellite tracking (WOW), NORAD (the U.S.) is in the clear it seems.

The truth is that there is no drawn up, agreed to and especially enforcable international law regarding any real liability for any collision that happens up there right now. I am hoping that this year's collision will begin the process for drawing up a comprehensive and serious international law for dealing with space debris and preventing serious mishaps (such as collisions).

The rest is just talk and worthless posturing.

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Michael A. Earl - Vendor
Canadian Satellite Tracking and Orbit Research
www.castor2.ca

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