UN sees growing number of space objects, calls for more vigilance : Space office chief

Vienna: The United Nations is seeing increasing numbers of space objects and is emphasizing the necessity to be more vigilant than before, UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Director, Simonetta Di Pippo, told Sputnik.
“On one side we see that the rules and principles, treaties, everything is implemented very carefully. At the same time, we are also seeing a growing number of space objects and so this means we collectively need to be even more vigilant than before,” Di Pippo said.
Di Pippo stressed that both the committee and the Office of Outer Space Affairs pay a lot of attention to issues of space debris.
“In particular, in trying to prevent and mitigate the creation of new debris, there is a continuous exchange of information between member states when we have our meetings,” she said.
The UN space chief noted that the space debris mitigation guidelines were endorsed by the General Assembly back in 2007. They put together a sort of a compendium of space debris mitigation standards.
“Space debris is also one of the topics that you can find on the 21 guidelines approved for the long- term sustainability,” she added. “What we see is the member states are using, let’s say, are in a way providing licenses to the operators which request the approval from the national authorities that the space debris mitigation guidelines are really followed. So, we see quite a good approach from the operators in this field.”
Up to 150 tonnes of space trash fall to the Earth every year and over 9,000 tonnes are circulating in orbit at any given time, according to materials showcased by Roscosmos at the Startup Village 2021 fair in Moscow’s Skolkovo Innovation Center in May.
In figures, it comes to 25,000 bits of debris up to 4 inches in size, about 900,000 bits up to 0.4 inches, and over 128 million bits smaller than that – and all travel 20 times faster than speed of sound, according to Roscosmos’ presentation.
The space agency wants to partner up with private companies, banks and venture capital through concession to create a monitoring system of debris and other dangerous space objects, it said in the presentation. The concession is expected to be launched in 2022 and remain in effect until 2045.
UNI/SPUTNIK