A space tug vehicle is designed to rendezvous and dock with a space object; make an assessment of its current position, orientation, and operational status; and then either stabilize the object in its current orbit or move the object to a new location with subsequent release. A subset of on-orbit servicing, space tug missions in the geosynchronous belt include stationkeeping of satellites which have lost attitude control and repositioning of satellites. Repositioning of spacecraft may be desirable as a means to rescue satellites launched into incorrect orbits, for the retirement of satellites

(exception, USAF X-37) or commercial actor since the earliest days of spaceflight due to the cost and complexity of achieving direct retrieval, but the ESA has Space debris (also known as space junk, space pollution, space waste, space trash, space garbage, or cosmic debris) are defunct human-made objects in space – principally in Earth orbit – which no longer serve a useful function. These include derelict spacecraft (nonfunctional spacecraft and abandoned launch vehicle stages), mission-related debris, and fragmentation debris from the breakup of derel NO… There is no international treaty minimizing space debris. However, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) published voluntary guidelines in 2007, using a variety of earlier national regulatory attempts at developing standards for debris mitigation. As of 2008, the committee was discussing international "rules of the road" to prevent collisions between satellites. By 2013, a number of national legal regimes existed, typically instantiated in the launch licenses that are required for a launch in all spacefaring nations. The US issued a set of standard practices for civilian (NASA) and military (DoD and USAF) orbital-debris mitigation in 2001. The standard envisioned disposal for final mission orbits in one of three ways: 1) atmospheric reentry where even with "conservative projections for solar activity, atmospheric drag will limit the lifetime to no longer than 25 years after completion of mission;" 2) maneuver to a "storage orbit:" move the spacecraft to one of four very broad parking orbit ranges (2,000–19,700 km (1,200–12,200 mi), 20,700–35,300 km (12,900–21,900 mi), above 36,100 km (22,400 mi), or out of Earth orbit completely and into any heliocentric orbit; 3) "Direct retrieval: Retrieve the structure and remove it from orbit as soon as practicable after completion of mission." The standard articulated in option 1, which is the standard applicable to most satellites and derelict upper stages, has come to be known as the "25-year rule". The US updated the Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices in December 2019, but made no change to the 25-year rule even though "[m]any in the space community believe that the timeframe should be less than 25 years." There is no consensus however on what any new timeframe might be. In 2002, the European Space Agency (ESA) worked with an international group to promulgate a similar set of standards, also with a "25-year rule" applying to most Earth-orbit satellites and upper stages. Space agencies in Europe began to develop technical guidelines in the mid-1990s, and ASI, UKSA, CNES, DLR and ESA signed a "European Code of Conduct" in 2006, which was a predecessor standard to the ISO…