MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd February, 2021) The global community needs to come up with some kind of a regulation that would legally bind satellite operators to remove an artificial object after it is no longer functional in order to avoid a generation of space debris, Jan Woerner, the outgoing ESA director general told Sputnik in an interview.
"We have to change the current regulations because to stay in orbit for 25 years is much to learn if you consider 10,000 of satellites in Orbit. The next very important step is a worldwide agreement, whether it is a rule, a regulation a law or just an agreement [which would reflect] understanding, that whenever satellite is being launched, one out of three conditions should be fulfilled," Woerner said.
One of such conditions could be that a satellite has an onboard independent system for de-orbiting the satellite, while the second option entails that an operator has a contract with a de-orbiting company for the removal of an object, the ESA chief noted.
"The third option the company which is launching a satellite, gives a deposit to a [space] agency and if this company does not de-orbit the satellite after operation, the agency has some money to do it," Woerner said.
Even though the issue of the commercialization of space resources has been dominating the public agenda recently, it is the removal of space debris that the global community should focus on, the executive underlined.
"This is very important, we have already many satellites in Orbit, we have a lot of space debris in orbit, more than 5,000 satellites right now out of which 1,100 are active, so many dead satellites and this will increase, so therefore I think this is more important at this point than the discussions about resources in space," Woerner added.
In 2019, the ESA commissioned ClearSpace-1, the first space mission that would catch space debris and remove it from Earth's orbit. It is planned to be launched in 2025.
The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs told Sputnik last year that space debris is on top of the challenges faced by the international community in space. The UN agency called on the global community to address the issue through information exchange and reporting mechanisms.
