Litterbugs (Image: European Space Agency/Rex Features)

Keeping space debris in check has become a national mission for the US.

The White House yesterday announced plans to share more information with other countries in a bid to prevent satellite collisions. The US will also fund research into cleaning up the space junk that’s already there.

Each new US president issues a list of priorities and positions related to outer space. Many elements, such as support for space exploration, tend to stay constant from one administration to the next.


However, Barack Obama’s National Space Policy includes new language on space debris, calling for the US government’s orbital tracking information and collision predictions to be shared with industry and other countries – a move that some have long sought.

Pooling information with other countries should help reduce the chances of another satellite collision like one in February last year that produced thousands of pieces of high-speed debris.

The more the better

“The more data the better, as long as it’s good quality and you can understand it,” says Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Previous space policies have dealt with preventing space debris, but the Obama administration also calls for research into technologies that could remove space debris already in orbit, such as laser tractor beams.

However it is best to prevent the generation of space debris in the first place, says Eugene Stansbery of NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office in Houston, Texas. “It will always be cheaper and easier to prevent debris rather than remove it after the fact.”