Senate Acts to Tackle Space Debris

November 7, 2023

The US Senate recently passed a bill setting policies to reduce the growing amounts of human-generated debris in space, by both removing current debris and minimizing creation of new debris. The bill now heads to the House for approval. None too soon, for Marilyn Harbert and Asha Balakrishnan. Authority over space activities is widely distributed across government, they write in Issues, making it critical for officials to devise effective measures to mitigate the orbital threats. “As the world prepares to put more objects into space,” they note, “the need for clear authority over how to manage debris will only increase.”

Posted by Tom Burroughs