The risks of ‘space junk’ are clear: what goes up, might well come back down on top of you | Patrick Schröder

Over the past 60 years of space activities, more than 6,050 space launches have resulted in roughly 56,450 tracked objects in orbit.

Only 8% of these objects are active satellites, the rest is junk.

More than 560 in-orbit fragmentation events have been recorded since 1961 , according to the European Space Agency .

The polluter pays’ principle would place legal and financial responsibility on space operators and technology producers.

A rare example of enforcement action was taken by the US Federal Communications Commission in October 2023 , fining the operator Dish Network $ 150,000 .

Getting a UN -led agreement on space debris governance would require cooperation of all major stakeholders.