[hellow0rldz]

Well, considering there's tens of millions of space junk already I wonder which countries/institutions are currently not doing a good job at that?! NASA and US would be top of the list.

[danpalmer]

Much of these are old and were put up a long time ago. In the last 10 years most people putting things in space have been far more careful to make good end-of-life plans, safe de-orbiting plans, and more. I don't think a rocket launched by SpaceX/ULA/Arianespace would be leaving their second stages to re-enter the atmosphere uncontrolled, it's just not really accepted anymore.

[shalmanese]

> I don't think a rocket launched by SpaceX/ULA/Arianespace would be leaving their second stages to re-enter the atmosphere uncontrolled

Well, except the Falcon 9 rocket that did just that 2 months ago: https://geekologie.com/2021/03/a-falcon-9-rocket-made-an-unc...

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Disappointingly, neither that article or the parent about the Chinese Long March rocket make it clear how planned or unplanned this was.

Falcon 9 rockets usually land or attempt to, so that was a failure or malfunction, that left it out of control in a short-term orbit?

And in the Chinese one? Was this outcome expected or was it due to a failure to de-orbit in a controlled way?

[SideburnsOfDoom]

There are currently very few (no other?) pieces of space junk as big as this one.

Not if you limit it to anything that might fall to Earth any time soon.