Space Debris Mitigation and Prevention: How to Build a Stronger International Regime

The international regime of space activities could be significantly strengthened by a universal adoption of space debris mitigation guidelines and by a legal recognition of the existence of space debris. The distinction between spacecraft of value and debris of no value is highly important. Also the practice of registering space objects with the United Nations should be strengthened by making the register complete and up to date. If a correlation is established between space objects, registered by the UN, space radio stations, and the International Telecommunication Union, then the problem of so called paper satellites would be better understood and possibly alleviated.