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On March 6, 2023, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) released a news bulletin regarding a new survey to evaluate the “current health and competitiveness of the civil segment of the U.S. space industrial base.”

According to the bulletin, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) requested the survey event. NASA and NOAA seek better visibility into the supply chain network of the U.S. Civil Space Industrial Base (CSIB) to analyze and better respond to various ...

On March 10, 2023, NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (“OTPS”) released a report, Cost and Benefit Analysis of Orbital Debris Remediation. OTPS resides under NASA’s Office of the Administrator and provides strategic advice, research, and policy recommendations for NASA’s leadership and the space community. The report is NASA’s attempt to answer the question, is space debris worth cleaning up?

The report begins by saying that space debris includes, “abandoned vehicle stages, non-functional satellites, and fragments resulting from collisions ...