A regulatory black hole on space waste has been revealed as federal politicians quiz top officials about the recent budget.
Australia is a signatory to all international space treaties, from exploration in outer space to the return of astronauts and objects, but there are no national regulations.
Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson questioned top space officials on Thursday about why waste management was not at the heart of the space program, as tens of thousands of space junk items circle earth.
The head of Australia's space agency, Enrico Palermo, said the technical area was called "space situational awareness" and was an emerging area of research as more Australian organisations launch satellites into space.
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READ NOW"We're working on long-term sustainability guidelines," he told a Senate estimates committee.
Mr Palermo said developing national regulations was also a focus for the Five Eyes intelligence network - comprising Australia, the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand - as well as the Quad grouping with Japan, the US and India.
He said Australia has a role to play because of its geography allowing it to view a large portion of the sky, and niche technologies such as passive radar.
Passive radar surveillance technology is key to national security because the user can track satellites without being detected.
Local company Silentium Defence has used a space agency grant to build a world-class observatory at Swan Reach in South Australia that uses passive radar to map space traffic and predict the trajectory of satellites in orbit.
Senator Whish-Wilson said big corporations and governments hadn't done a very good job of cleaning up after themselves on earth, and must do better as new frontiers are rapidly expanded in space.
"The department's response indicates we still have a long way to go before space junk is cleaned up at the pace it's created," he told AAP.
The build-up of debris since the space age began in the 1950s also poses a hazard to space stations.
At least 21,000 objects larger than 10cm are orbiting earth and only about six per cent are operational satellites, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
The rest are old satellites, rocket bodies or other fragments.
"The agency is working very closely with the Department of Climate Change, Energy and Water, particularly on launch activities in Australia, on wider consultation on future regulation," Mr Palermo said.
He said that to date no Australian launch activities have put debris into the ocean.