Washington, August 25 (QNA) - Space experts have warned of the risks posed by the growing amount of space debris, raising increasing concerns about congestion in space orbits and the difficulty of clearing them quickly, following the collision of a rocket belonging to SpaceX with the Moon on August 5.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) estimates that there are around 25,000 tracked orbital objects, in addition to more than 100 million small fragments that are difficult to detect, following the deployment of thousands of new satellites into Earth orbit.
Tim Flohrer, Head of the European Space Agency's Space Debris Office, explained that the increasing amount of debris threatens vital orbital pathways, even without any additional launches. 
The number of debris objects continues to rise because fragmentation events add new debris at a faster rate than objects can naturally re-enter the atmosphere.
For his part, Frans von der Dunk, Professor of Space Law at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in the United States, said that existing treaties concerning space debris date back to the Cold War era and were not designed to address the enormous quantities present today. 
He warned that failure to take action to clean up the orbit could lead to serious risks.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had previously announced plans to introduce new rules to accelerate commercial spacecraft launches by companies such as SpaceX, including exempting these companies from certain requirements related to environmental policies in order to speed up the issuance of commercial licenses. (QNA)