ISTC, in collaboration with ROSCOSMOS, organized an international workshop on Space Debris Mitigation on 26-27 of April, 2010, in Moscow. The workshop intends on bringing together specialists from the main space agencies such as NASA, ROSCOSMOS and the European Space Agency in an effort to provide a concerted answer to a global problem.

Space debris are objects in orbit around Earth that were created by humans but no longer serve any useful purpose. These objects consist of everything from spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to explosion and collision fragments. The debris can include slag and dust from solid rocket motors, surface degradation products such as paint flakes, coolant released by nuclear powered satellites, clusters of small needles, and objects released due to the impact of micrometeoroids or fairly small debris onto spacecraft. The threat for manned and unmanned spacecrafts to collide with space waste is ever growing. 

The ISTC workshop focused on preventing the increase in big size debris and managing the existing ones. By bringing together international expertise, efforts and resources, the workshop aims to develop effective approaches and identify technologies to make our planet and near-Earth space more secure.

The following topics will be discussed:

• Overview of the problem;

• Operational concept and acquired experience on space debris mitigation;

• Plans and developments of means/vehicles for debris removal from near-Earth space;

• Propulsion installations for debris removal from near-Earth space.

Contact person:
Tatiana Ryzhova, PhD 
Senior Project Manager
Tel.: (7-495) 982 32 80
Fax: (7-499) 978 46 37
E-mail: ryzhova@istc.ru