On 2 October, the US authorities announced the first ever fine for space littering. The penalty was given to Dish Network, which failed to properly dispose an old satellite.

According to a statement from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Dish Network was fined $150,000 for "improperly deorbiting" the EchoStar-7 satellite, which has been in Earth orbit since 2002.

The satellite was launched in 2002 into geostationary orbit, which begins at an altitude of about 36,000 km above the Earth’s surface. In 2012, as it neared the end of its service life, Dish committed to raising the satellite 300 km above its operational trajectory. This would allow it to be moved into a "graveyard orbit", where it would pose no threat to other, still active satellites.

However, due to insufficient fuel, the company was limited to lifting EchoStar-7 to an altitude of just over 120 km above the active geostationary orbit areas - 178 km from where it should be.

The settlement reached by the FCC and Dish "includes the company's admission of liability and agreement to comply with the compliance plan and pay a fine of $150,000". "As satellite operations become more prevalent and the space economy accelerates, we must be certain that operators comply with their commitments," - stated the head of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau.

The European Space Agency estimates that there are more than one million pieces of "space junk" larger than a centimetre in orbit around the Earth. Debris of this size is large enough to immobilise a spacecraft. In 2021, such debris punched a five-millimetre hole in the robotic arm of the International Space Station.

In January 2022, a Chinese satellite almost collided with shrapnel from a test of a Russian anti-satellite rocket. The two objects came within just 14.5m of each other.

Source: BBC, The Guardian, CBS News