Published On: July 27, 2026
Authored By: Sana Ravi Sapkal
Pravin Gandhi College of Law, Mumbai
Abstract
The augmentation of space debris has led to growing threats to humankind’s ability to keep using near-Earth orbital space. With India’s growing stature as a spacefaring nation, as shown by Chandrayaan-3, Aditya-L1, and the commercialisation momentum brought by IN-SPACe, the lack of a comprehensive statutory framework covering space activities, and especially space debris, looks increasingly like a serious governance gap. India still works mainly through the Indian Space Policy 2023 and executive authorisations issued by IN-SPACe, rather than through enacted legislation. The Space Activities Bill, 2017, which could have given real statutory footing, simply lapsed when the Lok Sabha was dissolved in 2019, and it has not been revived, even after seven years of almost unprecedented growth in the commercial segment.
This article looks closely at the character and scale of the global space debris problem, India’s obligations under the UN space treaties, the domestic regulatory setup and why it falls short, major international incidents and the legal fallouts that followed, ISRO’s technical initiatives, India’s Mission Shakti ASAT test as a governance contradiction, and comparative statutory frameworks across foreign jurisdictions.
Keywords: Outer Space Treaty, Space Debris Management, Liability Convention, IN-SPACe, Space Activities Bill, International Space Law, Kessler Syndrome.
I. Introduction
The rapid growth of space activities has turned outer space into a more crowded and, in a sense, strategically vital domain than it used to be. Satellites nowadays handle communication, navigation, defence systems, weather forecasting, banking networks, remote sensing, scientific research, and internet connectivity. Yet with all that expansion, one of the biggest and most concerning issues is the steady buildup of space debris. The space debris crisis is expected to worsen due to the commercialisation of outer space and the lack of a solid, binding international framework for managing it. Surveillance networks have tracked about 40,000 objects, of which 11,000 are active payloads.[1] Objects larger than 1 cm — large enough to cause catastrophic damage — are estimated to number over 1.2 million, with more than 50,000 of those larger than 10 cm. A woman in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in January 1997 was struck by a lightweight fragment of charred woven material. She was not injured. The debris was identified as coming from a Delta II booster, which re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on January 22, 1997. This was the first recorded incident of a human being hit by space junk.[2] Several similar incidents have followed, with objects re-entering the atmosphere and crashing onto roads and streets.
The foundational framework of international space law — the Outer Space Treaty of 1967,[3] the Liability Convention of 1972,[4] the Registration Convention of 1976,[5] the Rescue Agreement of 1968,[6] and the Moon Agreement of 1979[7] — was built for a state-dominated, Cold War-era space environment. These instruments lay out broad duties of responsibility, liability, and environmental care, but they do not provide binding instructions on debris production. There are no mandatory deorbit deadlines, nor any active remediation requirements. The one formal Liability Convention claim that was ever properly settled was Canada’s Claim Against the USSR for Damage Caused by Soviet Cosmos 954 (1978),[8] which concerned a satellite crashing to Earth — not an orbital collision or debris strike — and even then it ended up as a political settlement rather than a court-like decision, showing how limited enforcement really is. Against this background, major spacefaring jurisdictions have begun translating their shared international obligations into different domestic regimes. The United States, through the Federal Communications Commission,[9] has introduced a binding five-year deorbit rule. France’s CNES Space Operations Act, 2010 requires pre-launch debris mitigation plans and builds a legal liability chain between the state and private operators. Russia and China, by contrast, still lean on non-binding IADC guidelines,[10] with outcomes the historical record makes devastatingly clear.
On 10 January 2024, ISRO’s XPoSat mission became India’s first zero-debris space mission,[11] its launch vehicle deliberately aimed into the North Pacific Ocean without leaving any orbital remnant behind. It was celebrated as a benchmark for accountable space operations. But it also highlights a paradox that sits at the centre of this article: India can, through institutional will, carry out missions that leave no debris, yet it cannot legally compel anyone else — government or private party — to match that behaviour. There is simply no statute that requires it.
II. What Is Space Debris? Its Character and Scale
Space debris, or more colloquially “space junk,” is any human-made object in orbit that no longer serves a useful purpose, typically the result of space vehicles no longer in service.[12] Objects fitting this classification range widely in size, from old spacecraft and the rocket stages that launched them to micro-debris like flecks of paint. For tracking purposes, space junk is classified by size. Anything larger than ten centimetres can be tracked using ground-based radar and optical systems, then catalogued by space agencies. Objects smaller than one centimetre are effectively invisible to current tracking technology, yet they move at velocities sufficient to penetrate spacecraft shielding. At orbital velocities of around 28,000 kilometres per hour, even a one-centimetre fragment carries kinetic energy equivalent to a hand grenade detonating on impact with a spacecraft. Low Earth orbit — a band between 200 and 2,000 kilometres altitude — is at the highest risk.[13] This is where most satellites operate, including broadband mega-constellations, Earth observation platforms, and the International Space Station. Debris density is highest here, collision speeds are extreme, and the sheer number of objects makes close encounters a daily occurrence.
In February 2009, the Russian military satellite Cosmos 2251 and the active communications satellite Iridium 33 collided at nearly 12 km/s over northern Siberia, producing over 1,800 trackable fragments of 10 centimetres or larger.[14] In 2007, over 3,000 fragments were generated by the destruction of China’s FY-1C satellite. Russia’s 2021 ASAT test on Kosmos 1408 generated over 1,500 trackable fragments. Each of these events has compounded the space debris problem.
The Kessler Syndrome
The Kessler Syndrome, also called the Kessler Effect or collisional cascading, describes a scenario in which the density of objects in Low Earth orbit becomes high enough that collisions between objects generate debris faster than natural orbital decay can remove it. Each collision produces thousands of fragments, which then collide with other objects to produce still more fragments — an exponentially growing cloud of debris that renders entire orbital regions impassable.
The concept was proposed in 1978 by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in a paper titled “Collision Frequency of Artificial Satellites: The Creation of a Debris Belt.”[15] At the time, the orbital environment was relatively sparse, with only a few thousand objects, and Kessler’s warning seemed distant. Nearly five decades later, the tracked catalogue has grown tenfold, and multiple catastrophic collisions have since validated his prediction.
NASA’s current modelling indicates that the debris population in Low Earth orbit has already crossed the threshold where active debris removal — not merely reducing future launches — is necessary to stabilise the orbital environment.[16] The European Space Agency’s 2023 Space Environment Report similarly confirmed that even if all launches stopped immediately, the debris population would keep growing, largely because of existing collision chains.[17] That finding carries deep legal implications: it means the present generation of spacefaring states is not merely creating a problem for the next one — it may be closing a commons that future generations cannot reopen once it is gone.
III. International Frameworks: UN Space Treaties
India has signed four UN space treaties, which create obligations directly relevant to space debris management, yet no binding domestic legislation has been formulated to implement them.
India signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1967 and formally ratified it in 1982.[18] The Treaty was signed and ratified by the United States, the Soviet Union, and 63 other UN member states. It emerged from the Cold War, in which the US and USSR were competing for supremacy and had found a new arena for political and strategic contest. It was deemed necessary to lay down a framework ensuring that space exploration would remain open to scientific and humanitarian endeavours and to prevent its weaponisation. The Treaty prohibited the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in space and established state ownership of and responsibility for space projects. Article IX requires states to carry out their activities with due regard for others and to avoid harmful contamination of outer space. Bin Cheng, a noted scholar of international space law, has observed that Article IX is more exhortatory than obligatory — it sets a standard without a clear enforcement mechanism, and it never defines “harmful contamination” precisely.[19] In that light, India’s 2019 Mission Shakti ASAT test, which generated debris in Low Earth orbit, raises serious questions.
The Liability Convention of 1972 established absolute liability for damage caused on Earth’s surface and in outer space. The Convention did not address debris as a damaging object in itself, addressing only actively operating space objects.
The Registration Convention of 1976[20] required states to maintain a record of space objects and report it to the UN Secretary-General. However, the Convention created no debris mitigation obligation; registration only maintains a chain of custody for future liability cases.
The Rescue Agreement of 1968[21] lays down duties concerning astronaut rescue and the return of space objects. Its connection to debris is peripheral, and it is not really a governance instrument in this context.
IV. India’s Domestic Regulatory Framework
IN-SPACe, established under the Indian Space Policy 2023[22] as the nodal authority and oversight body for non-governmental space activities, replaced the earlier regulatory role held by ISRO. The NGP 2024[23] imposes debris mitigation obligations on private players, including requirements for pre-launch collision avoidance analysis, collision avoidance manoeuvres, and mandatory third-party liability insurance determined on a case-by-case basis. ISRO’s Debris Free Space Missions Initiative[24] commits all Indian missions to being debris-free by 2030.
ISRO has also shown real operational commitment through concrete technical practice. The XPoSat mission (January 2024) became India’s first zero-debris mission, its launch vehicle directed into the North Pacific without leaving orbital remnants behind. IS4OM, the nodal oversight agency, provides space situational awareness — tracking conjunction events and issuing timely collision warnings. PSLV upper stages are passivated, meaning leftover propellant is vented after the mission so it cannot later cause explosive fragmentation. These are genuine markers of institutional commitment.
The reason these measures fall short is that they are executive policy instruments. They are not enforceable, owing to the lack of binding legislation, and can be modified or revoked by administrative action alone. Mission Shakti (2019)[25] is a clear illustration: India destroyed its own satellite in Low Earth Orbit with no domestic legal consequence, because no such legal framework exists.
The Draft Space Activities Bill, 2025 proposes to establish statutory authority for IN-SPACe but does not mandate any debris mitigation plan or liability mechanism. It is, at present, an administrative attempt to reorganise the existing statute rather than a substantive debris-governance reform.
V. Major International Incidents and Legal Fallouts
Canada’s Claim Against the USSR for Damage Caused by Soviet Cosmos 954 (1978)[26] remains the only Liability Convention case to reach a settled result. A Soviet nuclear-powered satellite broke apart above Canada, scattering radioactive debris across roughly 124,000 square kilometres of the Northwest Territories. Canada sought $6 million to cover cleanup costs; the USSR paid $3 million. The outcome demonstrated that the Liability Convention can function for surface damage, but also that a “settlement” under it is essentially diplomatic negotiation rather than a courtroom ruling — there was no enforcement mechanism that legally compelled payment; the USSR paid because it chose to. For India, the lesson is direct: where international liability exists without domestic enforcement machinery, outcomes depend on leverage, not legal entitlement.
The FY-1C ASAT test by China (2007)[27] created over 3,000 trackable fragments in a band between roughly 200 and 3,800 kilometres altitude. Yet no Liability Convention claim followed, because the satellite destroyed was China’s own property, and the Convention as framed does not really cover “self-made” debris that later harms the shared commons. This gap — a state destroying its own satellite and leaving debris in shared orbital space with no immediate legal consequence — remains unaddressed by any binding instrument.
The Iridium 33 / Cosmos 2251 collision (2009)[28] was the first accidental satellite-to-satellite collision, producing roughly 2,000 additional fragments. Again, no Liability Convention claim was filed, partly because the orbital-damage liability standard under Article III is fault-based and difficult to enforce in practice when major powers have mutual deterrence interests. The incident underlined how structurally “soft” the Convention’s orbital liability regime is, precisely where the hazard is greatest.
Russia’s Kosmos 1408 ASAT test (2021)[29] generated more than 1,500 tracked fragments and forced ISS crew members to shelter in docked spacecraft for several hours. Public backlash was widespread but produced no legal consequences — Russia faced no claim, sanction, or binding remediation duty. The United States subsequently announced a unilateral moratorium on destructive ASAT testing in 2022, but that remains only a voluntary political commitment, not a binding rule.
Mission Shakti, India (2019) deserves the most careful reading, because it is both a debris event and a governance contradiction. India destroyed its own satellite, Microsat-R, in Low Earth Orbit at approximately 283 kilometres altitude, an altitude specifically chosen so the resulting debris would have a shorter orbital lifespan. NASA publicly stated that the debris threatened the ISS. India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) framed the test as proof of the country’s anti-satellite capability.
The contradiction here is structural, not merely a matter of optics. At the time of Mission Shakti, ISRO was actively promoting the Debris Free Space Missions initiative and “zero-debris” operational practice. The same institutional ecosystem that later designed the XPoSat rocket’s Pacific Ocean trajectory to avoid orbital contamination also operated within a system that permitted a kinetic weapon test deliberately creating debris. No domestic legal requirement existed for a debris impact assessment before the test, nor any rule setting out liability allocation, insurance duties, or India’s response pathway to a potential international claim. India, in effect, produced harmful orbital debris from a commons perspective while remaining in a legal vacuum of its own making.
VI. Comparative Statutory Frameworks and Perspective for India
The United States represents the most advanced framework. The FCC’s five-year deorbit rule has replaced the earlier twenty-five-year IADC guideline-based approach and binds both US and non-US operators. The proposed ORBITS Act[30] aims to establish a federal active debris remediation programme with uniform standards across government and private operators. India, drawing on this model, could adopt a statutory five-year deorbit rule as a licensing condition under the Space Activities Bill, 2025.
France’s CNES Space Operations Act, 2010 requires that pre-launch debris mitigation plans be created as a statutory licence condition and mandates insurance. It also establishes a statutory indemnification mechanism enabling the French state to recover, from the responsible private operator, any compensation it is required to pay internationally.
India should build a similar liability chain into the Space Activities Bill, 2025. The NGP 2024 attempts something comparable administratively, but cannot legally enforce it — a difference that matters considerably the moment a private Indian operator creates debris that causes internationally cognisable damage.
The European Space Agency’s Zero Debris Charter (2023)[31] requires signatories to leave no long-term debris in orbit and mandates five-year deorbit compliance for all ESA-funded missions.
The features India should borrow are, first, a codified five-year deorbit standard based on the US and ESA models; second, mandatory pre-launch debris mitigation plans modelled on France’s CNES Act; and third, a statutory liability-indemnification mechanism requiring authorised private operators to indemnify the Indian government against Liability Convention claims — eliminating the asymmetric risk where operators benefit commercially while the state absorbs unlimited international liability.
Conclusion
The space debris menace is not only a scientific problem but a legal one. The international framework lays down debris-related obligations for spacefaring states but leaves domestication largely to national discretion. The United States and France have moved decisively toward binding domestic standards. The European Space Agency has made “zero debris” an institutional commitment. Russia and China continue to rely on soft-law guidelines, a pattern that has produced some of the worst debris events on record. India stands at a crossroads: operationally proactive through ISRO’s technical initiatives, the XPoSat zero-debris mission, and the Debris Free Space Missions commitment, yet legislatively underprepared for a private sector scaling faster than its regulatory framework can realistically govern.
Set against the comparative frameworks discussed above, the prescription is clear. India’s Space Activities Bill, 2025 must embed a codified five-year deorbit standard and mandatory pre-launch debris mitigation plans as statutory licence conditions. It should also include a liability and indemnification mechanism so that private operators, rather than the Indian state alone, absorb international claims arising from their activities. Beyond borrowing from existing models, India has an opportunity to contribute an original norm: a statutory debris impact assessment requirement for kinetic space activities, something no other jurisdiction has yet enacted. Mission Shakti, while demonstrating real capability, also showed the cost of not having such a requirement. The Space Activities Bill, 2025 is the moment to make that absence permanent — in the sense of ensuring it is not repeated.
India joined the Artemis Accords[32] in 2023, signalling a commitment to a rules-based space order. That commitment will ultimately be judged not by policy statements or operational achievements alone, but by the legal infrastructure India builds at home. A cluttered cosmos requires more than cleaner missions — it needs a code, and that code needs to be enforceable.
References
[1] UNOOSA, Online Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space (2024).
[2] Nicholas L. Johnson, Orbital Debris: The Growing Threat to Space Operations, 41 Sci. & Tech. L. Rev. 1 (2010).
[3] Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Jan. 27, 1967, 18 U.S.T. 2410, 610 U.N.T.S. 205.
[4] Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects, Mar. 29, 1972, 24 U.S.T. 2389, 961 U.N.T.S. 187.
[5] Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space, Nov. 12, 1974, 28 U.S.T. 695, 1023 U.N.T.S. 15.
[6] Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, Apr. 22, 1968, 19 U.S.T. 7570, 672 U.N.T.S. 119.
[7] Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, Dec. 18, 1979, 1363 U.N.T.S. 3.
[8] Canada’s Claim Against the USSR for Damage Caused by Soviet Cosmos 954 (1979), 18 I.L.M. 899.
[9] Mitigation of Orbital Debris in the New Space Age, 89 Fed. Reg. 65217 (FCC Aug. 9, 2024).
[10] IADC Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines, Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (2007, rev. 2021).
[11] ISRO, XPoSat Mission Report, Indian Space Research Organisation (Jan. 2024).
[12] NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, Orbital Debris Quarterly News, Vol. 28 (2024).
[13] ESA Space Debris Office, ESA’s Annual Space Environment Report (2023).
[14] NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, The Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 Collision, Orbital Debris Q. News, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2009).
[15] Donald J. Kessler & Burton G. Cour-Palais, Collision Frequency of Artificial Satellites: The Creation of a Debris Belt, 83 J. Geophysical Res. 2637 (1978).
[16] NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, Orbital Debris Quarterly News, Vol. 28 (2024).
[17] ESA Space Debris Office, ESA’s Annual Space Environment Report (2023).
[18] United Nations Treaty Collection, Status of International Agreements Relating to Activities in Outer Space (2024).
[19] Bin Cheng, United Nations Resolutions on Outer Space Activities (1965).
[20] Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space.
[21] Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, art. V, Apr. 22, 1968.
[22] Indian Space Policy 2023, Department of Space, Government of India (Aug. 10, 2023).
[23] Norms, Guidelines and Procedures for Implementation of Indian Space Policy 2023 (NGP 2024), IN-SPACe (May 4, 2024).
[24] ISRO, Debris Free Space Missions Initiative, Statement of ISRO Chairman S. Somanath at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the IADC (2024).
[25] Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Mission Shakti: India’s First Anti-Satellite Missile Test (Mar. 27, 2019).
[26] Canada’s Claim Against the USSR for Damage Caused by Soviet Cosmos 954 (1979).
[27] Brian Weeden, 2007 Chinese Anti-Satellite Test Fact Sheet, Secure World Foundation (2010).
[28] NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, The Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 Collision, Orbital Debris Q. News, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2009).
[29] Brian Weeden & Victoria Samson, Global Counterspace Capabilities: An Open Source Assessment, Secure World Foundation (2022), at 2–8.
[30] Orbital Sustainability Act of 2025 (ORBITS Act), S. 1898, 119th Cong. (2025).
[31] ESA Zero Debris Charter, European Space Agency (2023).
[32] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, India Signs the Artemis Accords (June 21, 2023).
