The US government's reluctance thus far to release precise data about the satellites it is tracking is hampering efforts to prevent collisions in space, a satellite industry executive told a congressional committee on Tuesday.
The US tracks and predicts the orbits of the world's satellites and thousands of bits of space junk as small as 10 centimetres across, using radar and telescopes on the ground. But it closely guards its most precise data, and routinely releases only lower-precision data to satellite companies and other countries.
That makes it difficult for satellite operators to predict a collision with another satellite or piece of space junk, said Richard DalBello of satellite operator Intelsat General in testimony to a congressional hearing on Tuesday about space debris and safety.
To help avoid accidents like the one in February in which a Russian communications satellite collided with an American one, some commercial operators are pooling information on the positions and orbits of their satellites, based on their own tracking data.
The US tracks and predicts the orbits of the world's satellites and thousands of bits of space junk as small as 10 centimetres across, using radar and telescopes on the ground. But it closely guards its most precise data, and routinely releases only lower-precision data to satellite companies and other countries.
That makes it difficult for satellite operators to predict a collision with another satellite or piece of space junk, said Richard DalBello of satellite operator Intelsat General in testimony to a congressional hearing on Tuesday about space debris and safety.
To help avoid accidents like the one in February in which a Russian communications satellite collided with an American one, some commercial operators are pooling information on the positions and orbits of their satellites, based on their own tracking data.
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