STRASBOURG, France (Space.com) -– The Feb. 10 collision of an operational commercial satellite and a spent Russian spacecraft, which has resulted in a decades-long pollution of a widely used orbit, is raising questions about whether the company whose satellite was destroyed had done all it could to avoid the event, according to government and industry officials.

It also casts scrutiny on the way the U.S. Air Force disseminates information it collects on likely orbital collisions, these experts said.
Several officials said the collision, which produced two clouds of debris that are rapidly spreading above and below the 790-kilometer-high point of impact, might be enough to force the world's spacefaring nations to join forces to create a space traffic management agency whose data would be available to all nations with space-based assets.
Others were less optimistic. The dramatic in-orbit collision of the operational Iridium 33 satellite with the retired Russian Cosmos 2251 is the third event in two years drawing attention to the orbital debris issue in low Earth orbit.
A Chinese anti-satellite test destroyed a retired Chinese satellite and unleashed thousands of pieces of debris at nearly the same altitude in early 2007, and the U.S. government sent a missile to destroy one of its own classified satellites a year later, saying the satellite's imminent atmospheric re-entry posed a hazard to people.
“Are these enough to dramatize the nature of the issues relating to space security? I'm not sure,” said John M. Logsdon, chair in aerospace history at the U.S. National Air and Space Museum in Washington. “Maybe it will only happen when we face a loss of life, if debris destroys the International Space Station. Do we have to kill people to pay attention? That seemed to be the case with the
[U.S. space] shuttle.”
Logsdon made his remarks Feb. 20 during a space security conference here organized by the International Space University.
The U.S. Air Force is willing to help coordinate an international effort to create a space traffic management system whose goal would be to reduce the chances of a repeat of the Feb. 10 collision, said Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael J. Carey, deputy director of U.S. Strategic Command.
The Air Force has neither the resources nor the political mandate to stand watch over all commercial satellites, and the collision illustrates the “need to make information sharing more international,” Carey told the conference Feb. 18. “If we don't operate safely in space then we don't have assured anything in space. We need a broader international engagement. We are actively seeking opportunities to put a coherent plan together.”
But several officials questioned whether Iridium Satellite LLC has devoted sufficient resources to protecting not only its 66-satellite constellation, but the entire orbit in which it operates. The collision will render the Iridium orbit a more dangerous place to operate for all satellites, especially Iridium.
The Iridium voice and data communications constellation is operated by Boeing Satellite Operations and Ground Systems of Leesburg, Va. Boeing officials declined to comment on the events leading up to the Feb. 10 collision.