In space, no one can hear you scream, and no one can tell you where to park your satellite. If Tuesday night’s orbital smash-up had occurred during the Cold War, it might have triggered a nuclear showdown. Instead it has brought renewed calls for a celestial equivalent of the world’s air traffic control system.

Of the 6,000 satellites launched since the first Soviet Sputnik 52 years ago, few have been brought back to Earth. No international law requires it, and the process consumes rocket fuel that could otherwise be used to keep the satellites operational for longer.

Next week the UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space meets in Vienna to discuss getting satellite operators to put space safety before commercial factors. The committee will also address the even tougher question of how to persuade new space-faring nations, including Iran, to adopt internationally approved codes for licensing and disposing of their spacecraft.

“The UN has already agreed guidelines on what to do about space junk,” said Professor Richard Crowther, who will represent Britain at the meeting. “The next step is to agree on how to deal with operational satellites.”

Operators already need to get licences from the International Telecommunications Union before putting new satellites in orbit.

There is no incentive to dispose of satellites responsibly. China chose instead to blow one up in 2007. The US followed suit last year in a thinly disguised test of its antimissile technology. The result is a thickening cloud of space junk that just got thicker.

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