Focus on growing threat of space debris

18 April 2013 - The continuing growth in space debris poses an increasing threat to economically vital orbital regions. Next week, hundreds of top experts from across the globe will meet at Europe's largest-ever debris forum to share their latest research findings and discuss potential solutions. Satellite operators worldwide, including those flying telecom, weather, navigation, broadcast and climate-monitoring missions, are now focusing their efforts on controlling space debris. All human-made objects now in space result from the near-5000 launches by all spacefaring nations since the start of the space age. Around two thirds of catalogued objects originate from orbital break-ups - more than 240 explosions - and fewer than 10 known collisions. The 2009 collision between America's Iridium-33 civil satellite and Russia's Kosmos-2251 military satellite destroyed both and created a large amount of debris - more than 2200 tracked fragments. Scientists estimate the level of space debris orbiting Earth to be around 29 000 objects larger than 10 cm, 670 000 pieces larger than 1 cm, and more than 170 million above 1 mm.