§ 18441 — National And International Orbital Debris Mitigation

(a) Congress makes the following findings: (1) A national and international effort is needed to develop a coordinated approach towards the prevention, negation, and removal of orbital debris. (2) The guidelines issued by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee provide a consensus understanding of 10 national space agencies (including NASA) plus the European Space Agency on the necessity of mitigating the creation of space debris and measures for doing so. NASA’s participation on the Committee should be robust, and NASA should urge other space-relevant Federal agencies (including the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce) to work to ensure that their counterpart agencies in foreign governments are aware of these national commitments and the importance in which the United States holds them. (3) Key components of such an approach should include— (A) a process for debris prevention through agreements regarding spacecraft design, operations, and end-of-life disposition plans to minimize orbiting vehicles or elements which are nonfunctional; (B) the development of a robust Space Situational Awareness network that can identify potential collisions and provide sufficient trajectory and orbital data to enable avoidance maneuvers; (C) the interagency development of an overall strategy for review by the President, with recommendations for proposed international collaborative efforts to address this challenge. (1) The Administrator shall, in consultation with such other departments and agencies of the Federal Government as the Administrator considers appropriate, continue and strengthen discussions with the representatives of other space-faring countries, within the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee and elsewhere, to deal with this orbital debris mitigation. (2) For purposes of carrying out this subsection, the Director of OSTP, in coordination with the Director of the National Security Council and using the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology coordinating mechanism, shall develop an overall strategy for review by the President, with recommendations for proposed international collaborative efforts to address this challenge.