A tiny piece of debris triggered the most serious mishap at China’s Tiangong space station since it became operational three years ago.

The event underscores the growing threat posed by Earth’s ever-expanding cloud of orbital junk – a scare that could push China, as well as other countries including the United States, to speed up their debris tracking and removal capabilities.

Many of these systems are inherently dual-use: the same tools that can safely deorbit defunct satellites could also be repurposed to disable enemy spacecraft.

While China rushes to ready the next spacecraft, Shenzhou-22, to be launched next week as the station’s new lifeboat, the country had already begun “working more seriously on space-debris issues” before the episode, said Harvard astronomer and space historian Jonathan McDowell.