Due regard
The Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron, located at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, is responsible for tracking objects in Earth orbit, maintaining a catalog of all satellites and space junk, and monitoring for potential collisions between spacecraft or debris. Space Command regularly issues warnings of conjunctions, or close approaches, between objects to commercial companies and foreign governments.
“For decades now, the United States has so cared about the space domain that we have made available the vast majority of tracking data that we have, for free, for the world,” Whiting said. “Every day, we screen every active satellite against all that debris, and we provide notifications out to everyone, including the Chinese and Russians.
“People sometimes ask, ‘Well, why do you do that?’ Well, it’s because we don’t want satellites to run into pieces of debris and create more debris. So we think it’s really important, and we have a set of responsible behaviors that we follow each and every day. We provide these notifications to the Chinese,” Whiting said.
The Commerce Department plans to take over some of the military’s role in space traffic management, but Space Command will maintain its own catalog and will remain responsible for working with foreign militaries on space debris matters, according to Whiting.
Last November, President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to resume military-to-military communications between each nation’s armed forces, which were suspended in 2022. US and Chinese military leaders have met face to face several times this year, and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, met with Xi and Chinese military leaders this week in Beijing. The meetings have focused on terrestrial concerns and operational matters, such as reducing the risk of miscalculations, or an accidental escalation or conflict between Chinese airplanes and ships and those from the United States and its allies.
Whiting said China has provided the US military with some information on the topic of space debris, but China should do more.
