Services from space, such as weather forecast, global positioning service (GPS) or online banking, have become integral parts of our lives.So far, things are working smoothly, but what if they one day, they didn't?

More than 8800 tonnes of human-made objects are orbiting Earth at speeds of up to 25,000 km/hr. While space is big and no one knows when catastrophic collisions could occur, one thing is sure: our space environment is neither safe, secure, nor sustainable and time is ticking away.

So what is being done about it? 'Clean-up satellites' with ideas such as grabbing arms, nets or even harpoons are being developed by several space agencies, universities, and companies around the world to remove non-functional satellites and de-orbit them, so they burn up safely in the atmosphere.

For these to work, we need to know where those non-functional satellites are and how they are moving, for example. whether they are spinning or not. Several space surveillance networks currently monitor, space, the biggest of which is the US Space Surveillance Network. It monitors over 20,000 objects bigger than 10 cm. However, only 2300 of thee are working satellites. However, the data is not always complete or clear. There are currently no global policies in place to regulate what can be placed in low Earth orbit (200 - 2000 km above the Earth's surface), or what features a satellite has to have to be able to de-orbit at the end of its lifetime. Mt Stromlo Observatory is using an astronomy technique called adaptive optics (space lasers) to measure the shape, composition, orientation and spin from a satellite in space.

When light travels through space, it moves as a flat wave. However, when it goes through the atmosphere, it gets distorted resulting in a blurred image. This is the reason why you don't see stars as round circles, but instead see them twinkle. An adaptive optics system uses a telescope with a mirror that can change shape, a computer, and a laser.

The laser measures the distortion, and sends its measurements to the real-time computer. The real-time computer converts the measurements and tells the mirror to change its shape based on the computer's input. We can then get a "flat" image, one that is nice and clear, almost as if we were in space.

As the system runs in real-time, we can also take videos of the satellite spinning in orbit, which helps us understand how the space environment influences the behaviour of satellites. That way, we can contribute to making the space environment more manageable and sustainable.

At the newly created Centre for Space Situational Awareness Research (CeSSAR) at the ANU, a team of researchers have set out to combine and analyse satellite tracking data and develop new concepts to increase the knowledge about space objects and unambiguously identify space objects. This way, we still have a shot at making the space environment safe, secure and sustainable ... before it is too late.