It's Getting Crowded Up There

The U.S.. Strategic Command oversees a lot of operations and assets, including the country's nuclear strike force, missile defense, satellites and cyberspace operations. But the STRATCOM commander views a midspace collision of two satellites this February as the "seminal event" of the year.

So what? Space is a big place, right? Not according to STRACOM commander Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, who said in a speech he delivered Wednesday that the portion of space near earth is crowded, home to some 800 satellites and about 20,000 pieces of space junk.

The February collision of a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a nonoperational Russian Cosmos military satellite created another 600 pieces of space junk and served as a wakeup call to STRATCOM to develop better ways to track stuff in orbit -- or what Chilton called space situational awareness.

The Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit in a Superior, Colo., that advocates development of an advanced space situational awareness system, estimates the amount of space junk is 15 times greater than what Chilton said. The group believes) that there are about 300,000 untracked objects in Earth's orbit, including such things as foil scraps, bolts and other material. The number of bits and pieces smaller than three feet may number in the billions, the foundation estimated.

Chilton said the United States is "decades behind where we should be," in development of a space sitiuational awareness system and added the development of such a system is a global challenge that might require a global partnership to solve.

Litter - it's everywhere, even in orbit.