NASA's 22-year-old Swift space telescope re-entered Earth's atmosphere over Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, on November 4, after a failed attempt to boost its orbit. The rescue spacecraft, LINK, had suffered attitude-control problems.

Just three days later, China's first EYESAT-01 satellite lifted off from Jiuquan on November 7, entering orbit to track space objects and debris.

As Earth’s orbits grow increasingly crowded, how do we safeguard this shared sky?