On December 21, the US Senate unanimously passed the Orbital Stability Act, and the document still needs to be approved by Congress.

According to reports from SpaceNews, the bill was introduced by Sen. John Hickenlooper (R-Col.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, in September, and would require NASA, in cooperation with government agencies and the private sector, to compile a list of “at-risk debris that or the persistence orbital satellites and orbit activity”. The document does not specify how this risk will be calculated and how many objects must be included in the list.

NASA is also to introduce a program for “proactive disposal of debris” and will reward companies for “developing technologies to recover it.” The law would also allow the US and other space agencies to receive space debris collection services. There is no mention of specific funding for NASA or other agencies, only that such work will be appropriated.

The National Space Council is required by law to update the government’s “Standard Practices for Orbital Debris Management” every 5 years.

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The legislation has been backed by many companies and organizations, such as satellite maintenance industry group CONFERS, which said in September that the document recognizes that cleaning up orbital debris should be a joint effort between government and industry.

“This bill will advance the technology needed to remove the most dangerous debris before it disables a satellite, collides with a NASA mission, or falls to Earth and harms someone,” said bill co-sponsor Senator Maria Cantwell.

Hickenlooper, in turn, said he would help send the bill to the president. However, he will be able to work on this only next year. The House did not consider the legislation before approving spending for the next fiscal year. The document must be resubmitted at the January session of Congress.

A related bill was recently “drown” in the chamber. Representatives Don Beyer and Donald Norcross introduced the Space Security and Situational Awareness Transition Act of December 14, 2022, which would authorize the Department of Commerce to establish a civilian space situational awareness (SSA) system.

According to NASA, as of May 2021, sensors in the US Department of Defense’s Global Space Surveillance Network (SSN) are tracking more than 27,000 fragments of orbital debris, but the total number is much higher — some debris is too small and difficult to detect.

The speed of the debris, like the speed of spacecraft, is extremely fast (about 25,300 km/h in low Earth orbit), so a collision with even a tiny piece can cause big problems for satellites or spacecraft. Orbital debris includes any man-made object that no longer performs useful functions: it can be decommissioned spacecraft, rocket debris, etc.

• In 1996, a French satellite was damaged by debris from a French rocket that had exploded a decade earlier.
• On February 10, 2009, a disabled Russian spacecraft collided with and destroyed the American commercial Iridium spacecraft. The collision added to the list of space debris more than 2,300 large pieces of debris currently being tracked, and many smaller pieces of debris.
• China’s anti-satellite test in 2007, in which a missile destroyed an old weather satellite, added more than 3,500 large pieces of tracked debris and many smaller fragments.