U.S. Supports Work on Code for Peaceful Use of Outer Space

The United States continues to work in the United Nations and other venues to promote international cooperation on space and for a “code of conduct” to govern the peaceful uses of outer space.

The United States continues to work in the United Nations and other venues to promote international cooperation on space and for a “code of conduct” to govern the peaceful uses of outer space.

On October 19, Kenneth Hodgkins, an adviser to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said in remarks at the United Nations in New York that the United States “continues to emphasize increased international cooperation to promote the peaceful use of outer space in a wide range of areas. We continue to work closely with the United Nations and with other organizations to address the growing problem of space debris and to promote “best practices” for sustainable use of space.”

Hodgkins also cited the 40th anniversary of the longest-running civilian Earth observation program, Landsat, launched in July 1972. Landsat, he said, “has provided on a worldwide basis essential information for land surface monitoring, ecosystems management, disaster mitigation, and climate change research.”

Since 2008, the full U.S. Landsat image archive has been made available free of charge over the Internet, Hodgkins said. As a result, he added, distribution of images has risen from an average of just more than 50 scenes per day to more than 5,500 scenes per day in 2011. By April 2012, more than 8 million Landsat scenes had been provided to users in 186 countries.

This NASA computer-generated graphic shows objects in Earth orbit currently being tracked. Approximately 95 percent of the objects in this illustration are orbital debris, not functional satellites.