017 - Our Journey Through the Space Debris Frontier

Earth’s orbit is more crowded than ever. From spent rocket stages to tiny shards of past collisions, the orbital commons above us is littered with debris. Each piece, no matter how small, poses a risk to satellites, astronauts, and the future of space exploration. For the past year, I’ve been exploring how technology, incentives, and collaboration can address this challenge, and what follows is a snapshot of that journey.

Space Debris Visualized by Dall-E

Building the Space Debris Dashboard
Every big problem starts with visibility. My first step was creating a Python-based Space Debris Dashboard that ingests orbital data from sources like NASA’s Celestrak TLE and ESA’s DISCOS database. By layering in AI/ML techniques I’d studied in grad school: classification models, PCA for dimensionality reduction, and logistic regression for risk scoring, I was able to highlight which objects might present the greatest threat. It was both an engineering exercise and a proof of concept: data can tell powerful stories about orbital safety.

The Space Debris Bounty Concept
Technology alone doesn’t clean up orbits. Incentives matter. That’s why I began sketching out the idea of a “Space Debris Bounty”: a global framework where sovereign wealth funds or tokenized rewards could motivate private companies to track, capture, or deorbit high-risk debris. Instead of endless debates about “who pays,” this flips the script; whoever solves the problem earns the bounty. It’s a way to turn orbital sustainability into a shared opportunity.

Conversations with Industry Leaders
Exploration means stepping outside the lab. I connected with superstars at Boeing in Launch Services, an executive formerly at Lockheed Martin, who is now at Astroscale, whose life-extension and refueling missions provide real-world footholds in debris mitigation, as well as someone close to me who worked on a space company that owned a space station; these great visionaries answered many questions for me and also helped me gain some footing in an area I did not know too much about before I embarked on my studies. Astroscale’s challenges around autonomous rendezvous and docking resonated deeply with the AI/ML tools I’ve been developing. I also studied the approaches of companies like Anduril, whose expertise in multi-sensor fusion and defense-grade autonomy could just as easily apply to orbital tracking as to terrestrial defense. These conversations made it clear: the frontier isn’t just technical; it’s collaborative.

The Broader Vision
Through MaNiverse Inc., we are blending these explorations into something larger. It’s not just about dashboards or incentives; it’s about creating frameworks where art, technology, and social impact converge. Space debris might seem like a niche issue, but in truth, it represents our ability (or inability) to steward the shared domains we all rely on. Cleaning Earth’s orbit isn’t just a technical problem; it’s a test of human imagination and cooperation.

Looking Forward
This exploration of orbital debris is still unfolding. The prototypes are small, but the questions they raise are enormous: How do we price orbital safety? How do we align private incentives with planetary stewardship? How do we make space not just accessible, but sustainable? For me, the journey has just begun, and for us, at MaNiverse Inc., we are staying committed to working on the solutions and sparking dialogue. If Earth’s orbit is the next frontier, then solving space debris is one of the most meaningful challenges of our time, and we are excited to be a small part of that story.