Summary of the first European conference on space debris

Abstract

At the initiative of the European Space Agency (ESA), the First European Conference on Space Debris was held in Darmstadt, Germany, from 5 to 7 April 1993 gathering more than 250 experts from 17 countries. The conference was cosponsored by the national space agencies Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), British National Space Centre (BNSC), Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and Deutsche Agentur für Raumfahrtangelegenheiten (DARA). The conference was primarily focusing on technical aspects of space debris, however, in a number of mutually complementary papers legal issues were addressed.