Tracking space debris is paramount to all our activities in space.  Every time we put a “useful” satellite into orbit – to service our communication needs, monitor the weather or spy on other countries – we are amplifying the growing space junk problem surrounding Earth.

In September 2009 we were reminded of the danger of space junk when a 15-foot chunk of old rocket part passed the space station and Space Shuttle Discovery with less than a mile to spare.

The United States Strategic Command keeps very close tabs on what is orbiting our planet and where they are at any given time.  This site, which uses a Google Earth plug-in, lets you see the space debris and do some satellite tracking yourself.

Not only can you get information on the 13,000 objects tracked by the US Strategic Command, it also lets you plot their orbits.  All the way from low Earth to geostationary orbits, you can access information about who launched the satellite, whether it is active or not, its launch date, mass and orbital information.  You can also check out some information on satellites you may have never heard of, like the active InSat – 3A/4B geostationary communication satellites and many others.

You get the idea that our near-earth space is getting kind of cluttered, don’t you?