Millions of pieces of space debris litter the
space, be it defunct satellites (average lifespan of a satellite is
5-8 years) or the intentional destruction of satellites through
anti-satellite missile testing (ASAT) demonstrated successfully by
United States (US), Russia, China, and India (March, 2019).
Disaster occurs when any debris travelling at high speeds strikes a
working satellite/spacecraft, or falls back on earth. There
are mechanisms for tracking of more than 5,00,000 (Five Lakh)
space debris, so that liability can be fixed on the owner of the
debris, while there are millions of smaller debris which cannot be
tracked. Some examples of damage due to space debris include,
damage of French satellite by debris from a rocket exploded a
decade ago in 1996 and the destruction of functioning US Iridium
satellite by collusion with a defunct Russian satellite in 2009.
Countries have also developed certain mission control manoeuvres to
avoid collision of debris with
