COLORADO SPRINGS, July 14 — The business of keeping track of what is orbiting overhead has become a quietly crowded field. The United States Space Command, reestablished in 2019, operates the primary system for monitoring objects in Earth orbit through its Space Surveillance Network, a mix of ground-based radars and optical sensors. That network feeds data into a public catalogue hosted on Space-Track.org, giving the world a window into the traffic above.
Under the hood, the technical reality is that no single organisation owns a complete picture. The European Space Agency, founded in 1975, runs its own Space Debris Office and publishes annual reports on the state of orbital debris.
In 2023, ESA reported that over 34,000 objects larger than 10 centimetres are tracked globally. That number covers only the pieces big enough for current sensors to see; the smaller stuff, which can still cripple a satellite, remains largely uncatalogued.
The academic contribution
University researchers are part of the picture too. Dr. Vishnu Reddy at the University of Arizona leads the NASA-funded Space Debris Research Program, using the 1.6-metre telescope at the Mount Graham International Observatory. That instrument is not a military asset, but its data feeds into the broader understanding of what is up there.
The detail that matters here is that debris monitoring is no longer a purely government function; academic and nonprofit groups are filling in gaps the official systems leave open.
Policy without teeth
The Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit based in Colorado, advocates for debris mitigation policies. It has no operational role, but its work feeds into the international conversation. As ever, the policy side moves more slowly than the technical one.
The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, established in 1959, discusses space sustainability but has no enforcement power. COPUOS can debate guidelines and encourage best practice, but when a nation decides to test an anti-satellite weapon or simply leaves a spent rocket stage in a busy orbit, there is no mechanism to stop it.
The result is a system that tracks debris well enough to warn satellite operators of potential collisions, but cannot compel anyone to clean up their mess. What to watch next is whether the growing volume of traffic — commercial constellations, government payloads, and the debris they leave behind — will push COPUOS or other bodies toward something harder than discussion. For now, the Space Surveillance Network and its counterparts remain the only eyes on the sky, and they are seeing more junk every year.
