Ever since the end of the Cold War, the division of the Pentagon responsible for launching a massive nuclear (counter)attack has been at loose ends. All those early-warning radars and space surveillance networks don’t seem quite so important without the threat of Soviet warheads coming over the horizon line.

But it looks like US Strategic Command (formerly Strategic Air Command) may have a new mission—space traffic controller. Ever since the collision of a US Iridium satellite with a defunct Russian military communications satellite back in February, StratCom has stepped up its efforts to monitor the increasingly crowded space known as low-earth orbit.

On Tuesday, General Kevin Chilton, the head of StratCom, announced that the organization is tracking some 800 manoeuvrable satellites on a daily basis for possible collisions. StratCom hopes to add another 500 objects by the end of the year.

That’s pretty impressive, but it’s a long way from comprehensive: the Air Force estimates that there are around 20,000 satellites, spent rocket stages and other objects whizzing around earth. That’s up from 14,000 just a few years ago.

Iridium