NASA Launches Space Sustainability Plan Amid Growing Debris Crisis

NASA is currently finalizing its space sustainability plan, with the Associate Administrator, Melroy, having experience with various concepts for decluttering orbit from her time at DARPA. While America intends to lead its own space junk disposal missions, a European Space Agency and private company called Clearspace are planning to launch a spacecraft in 2026 that will utilize robotic arms to capture a 250-pound rocket part and safely bring it down into the atmosphere to burn up. This action is in response to the increasing problem of space debris, with the U.S. Space Force noting that the rocket part they are targeting was possibly hit by smaller debris last summer.

NASA’s annual budgets are determined by Congress, which recently cut the agency’s fiscal year 2024 budget by 2 percent, impacting programs like the Mars sample return mission. A debris disposal mission would require a substantial investment, but NASA’s cost-benefit analysis suggests that removing the top 50 most concerning objects in low Earth orbit would be beneficial in the long run. Developing technologies such as lasers to move debris away from critical satellites is also considered financially viable and a necessary step in preventing collisions. However, the design and deployment of such garbage-hauling tech will take time, with scaling up operations requiring even longer.

According to planetary scientist Aaron Boley, changing behavior is essential since cleaning up space trash is ineffective if the problem continues to worsen due to continued pollution and the addition of more junk into orbit. The release of NASA’s space sustainability strategy is a positive step, but there is still much work to be done in order to effectively address this growing issue.