Space junk cleanup bill passes Senate

“Nearly one million pieces of space junk pass over our heads every day,” Cantwell said. “The ORBITS Act will jumpstart the technology development needed to remove the most dangerous space junk before it knocks out a scientific satellite, threatens a NASA mission, or falls to the ground and hurts someone.”

“Space junk,” or orbital debris, currently poses a threat to human space exploration, scientific research missions, and emerging commercial space services, said a press release from Cantwell’s office. There are approximately 8,000 metric tons of space junk currently in orbit, including at least 900,000 individual pieces of debris that are potentially lethal to satellites. Because of the magnitude of the current debris, simply preventing more debris in the future is not enough.

“Every year, there are cases of space junk falling to Earth. A car-sized object landed in Australia over the summer. In Washington state, a large piece of space junk crashed into a farmer’s property in March 2021,” said the press release. “Washington State companies, including Seattle-based satellite servicer Starfish Space, have advocated for the acceleration of space debris removal efforts. Other companies in Washington state, like SpaceX, Amazon’s Kuiper Systems, and Stoke Space Technologies, are also looking for new ways to reduce debris from accumulating in space in the first place or have been threatened by debris.”

The ORBITS Act would:

Direct the Department of Commerce Office of Space Commerce (OSC) to publish a list of debris that poses the greatest risk to orbiting spacecraft

Establish a NASA program to demonstrate the removal of debris from orbit to accelerate the development of required technologies;

Encourage consistent orbital debris regulations by initiating a multi-agency update to existing orbital debris standards applicable to government systems; and

Require OSC, with the National Space Council and Federal Communications Commission, to encourage the development of practices for coordinating space traffic, which will help avoid collisions that create debris.