The safety and security of space activities in Earth orbit are becoming a matter of grave concern, according to Gerard Brachet who has served as chairman of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

With a commanding name such as MASTER, it is expected that the Russian-made global robotic system for monitoring near-Earth and outer space has big things in store - and indeed it does.

The diplomacy of space security is a difficult realm in which to assess progress. There are no set benchmarks and little movement on which to base a call as to whether matters are progressing or regressing and to a degree it resembles a ‘glass half full or half empty’ type of determination.