The latest issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News (ODQN) is now available. See the latest updates as of February 2021. 

The latest issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News (ODQN) is now available. See the latest updates as of November 2020. 

The April 2020 issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News is now available. This issue includes the articles, "Three Recent Breakup Events," "The New NASA Orbital Debris Engineering Model 3.1," and "Composite Material Char Rate and Strength Retention Study at University of Texas at Austin," among other pieces.

Learn the latest details on the release of the Orbital Debris Engineering Model, ORDEM 3.1, in this article from Orbital Debris Quarterly News, Volume 24, Issue 1, February 2020.

The Office of Safety and Mission Assurance’s Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) recently released “A Meteoroid Handbook for Aerospace Engineers and Managers” (NASA/TM-2019-220142) to help educate programs across the agency about the environments their spacecraft could encounter during their missions and, in turn, help programs protect their spacecraft from potentially damaging threats.

The February 2020 issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News is now available and includes the article “The Inaugural International Orbital Debris Conference,” republished here. 

This issue also includes the articles “U.S. National Space Council Announces Update to the USG ODMSP,” “Fifty-first SOZ Unit Breaks Up,” “Debris Assessment Software Version 3.0 Release,” and “The 2019 U.S. Government Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices.” 

The U.S. National Space Council announced the update to the U.S. Government (USG) Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices (ODMSP). The announcement took place at the First International Orbital Debris Conference (co-sponsored by NASA) in Sugar Land, Texas.

NASA recently updated NASA-STD-8719.14, Process for Limiting Orbital Debris. This update follows the February 2017 revision of the governing policy document NPR 8715.6, NASA Procedural Requirements for Limiting Orbital Debris and Evaluating the Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Environments.

The four guiding principles in the U.S. Government Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices, approved in 2001, are to limit the generation of mission-related debris, accidental explosions and collisions, and to conduct postmission disposal. Both the 2006 and 2010 U.S. National Space Policies directed U.S. government departments and agencies to implement the standard practices to limit the generation of new debris by their space missions. NPR 8715.6, NASA Procedural Requirements for Limiting Orbital Debris and Evaluating the Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Environments and NASA-STD-8719.14, Process for Limiting Orbital Debris represent the agency’s implementation of the standard practices.