Tone down the space-race rhetoric
With about 20 active spacefaring nations, 90-plus space agencies around the globe, commercial space flights, and thousands of satellites in Earth orbit, it’s time for international space-traffic control.
Nobody wants a couple of multi-million-dollar satellites crashing into one another, and the economic loss isn’t the only concern. A smash-up could raise questions of whether it was a hostile attack, and it would create hundreds of small pieces of space debris.
So far, the tracking that started at the dawn of the space age has become increasingly sophisticated and has been able to keep things orderly. But close calls and alerts to satellite operators about potential dangers are increasing.
The need for a formalized space-traffic control system was mentioned frequently at the recent 36th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, along with updating the rules for responsible behavior in space.
But it was clear that nationalism and the quest for military superiority in space could get in the way.
Space traffic management and rules are topics that have bubbled through the military, civilian and commercial space communities for years, but there’s a sense of urgency as we have entered what Gen. Jay Raymond, chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, called the “second golden age of space.”
Consider just a few statistics: The number of satellites in lowearth orbit rose from 2,100 in 2019 to 4,900 today; the cost of getting a payload into space has dropped from the Space Shuttle rate of $25,000 a pound to $1,250 a pound on a commercial rocket; more than 32,000 objects, including the International Space Station and small pieces of debris, are being tracked by the Space Force (an estimated 250,000 smaller pieces of debris untracked by the military are in low-earth orbit), and the global space economy was estimated at $447 billion in 2020 — with few impacts from the pandemic.
In Colorado, there are more than 500 aerospace companies and suppliers, including operations for nine of the top 10 in the country. Those companies employ more than 33,000 people for an annual payroll of $4.3 billion, according to the Colorado Space Coalition’s 2021 report.
Even as symposiums speakers talked about the need to maintain a safe and stable space domain, satellite data was being relayed to assist rescue workers in Haiti, wildland firefighters in California, water managers working to allocate a shrinking resource in the parched West, and those involved with the frenzied evacuation of Afghanistan.
Indeed, the world relies heavi
ly on space systems in many aspects of daily life.
The idea of controlling activity on a global scale for the good of all isn’t a new concept. We do it in the air, on the sea, and with the telecommunication airwaves. The time has come, and we’re perhaps already late, to do it in outer space.
I detected some dissonance, though, in the remarks on this topic at the symposium.
Uniformed and civilian speakers connected to the Department of Defense or U.S. national security interests were nearly half of the general symposium program (16 of 35 presentations), so the drumbeat to maintain U.S. prominence in space was loud. And the drumbeat of “China is a threat” (and to a lesser extent, Russia) was louder.
Here’s a sample of those voices:
•“China has an unquenchable drive to get ahead of us.” National Reconnaissance Office Director Christopher Scolese.
•“China has moved aggressively to weaponize space.” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.
•“We’re all faced by the challenges of an increasingly competitive, congested and contested space domain.” Gen. James Dickinson, command-in-chief of U.S. Space Command.
•“We are prepared to defend. We are not sitting still.” Raymond, of the U.S. Space Force.
Even NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who participated in several forums and generally spoke about civil space endeavors and international and commercial partnerships, said: “We’re in a space race with China.”
Speakers on international panels and the director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) were more likely to talk about the importance of space systems in combating climate change and for disaster mitigation. They clearly favor a United Nations approach to space traffic control.
•“We have to do traffic management within the United Nations. I realize speed is an issue.” – Walther Pelzer, head of the German Space Agency.
•“ESA is committed to an in
ternational framework.” – Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency.
•“We must ensure a robust framework for all nations to work in space.” – Lisa Campbell, president of the Canadian Space Agency.
•“We need strong international regulation. There will be many new players.” – Philippe Baptiste, chairman and CEO of the French space agency
(CNES).
•“The UN has been the place … that supports all the players.” – Simonetta Di Pippo, director of UNOOSA.
The United States has started this work and, you might be surprised to learn, so has New Zealand, whose space agency was created just five years ago.
In 2018, President Trump directed the Commerce Department to develop a space traffic management system and to mitigate the effects of space debris for commercial providers. The job falls to the Office of Space Commerce.
It makes sense — that’s where the Federal Aviation Administration started after fledgling efforts by the airlines to institute air traffic controls.
The Space Force will continue to maintain its catalog of objects in space.
Pelzer said he’s glad that work is underway as it can serve as a “draft for a UN solution.”
Of course, China and Russia weren’t at the symposium to weigh in on the subject.
Neither was the New Zealand Space Agency, which is rapidly developing a regulatory regime to support “the growth of a safe, responsible and secure space industry, which meets our international obligations and manages any liability arising from our obligations as a launching state.”
It’s working with Leolabs, a California-based company that is building a network of groundbased radars to track even the tiniest piece of debris in lowearth orbit and provide realtime data to satellite operators.
New Zealand is using that tracking data to ensure everything it licenses for launch — about 100 satellites so far — is where it’s supposed to be and doing what it’s supposed to do.
“For us it’s a template” of how to do operational space-traffic safety management, which has not been done anywhere, said Dan Ceperley, CEO and cofounder Leolabs.
Ceperley has been talking with the Commerce Department, too.
“We need a regulatory body defining the rules of the road and actually monitoring what’s going on in space,” he said.
He didn’t want to weigh in on who should be the regulator but noted that space is an international arena and there is collaboration that crosses many borders. He believes the thing that contributes the most to good behavior in space is transparency.
“The new space race is primarily commercial, and we want to make that successful,” he said. “We really don’t want a conflict in space and transparency can drive deterrence.”
With tracking, aggressive behavior or irresponsible behavior will be spotted and discussed, and that encourages good behavior, he said.
UNOOSA has played a significant role in shaping good behavior with the formation of international space law since its creation in 1959. The cornerstone is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which allows for freedom of exploration and the non-appropriation of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies.
Four subsequent treaties have reinforced and updated the original treaty, but the last of those was the 1979 Moon Agreement.
UNOOSA also issued guidelines on debris mitigation and sustainability. Those are guidelines — still, they encourage good behavior.
Updating those agreements and expanding them to include space traffic control is badly needed, and some speakers spoke to that.
It might have been easier before the United States and other nations realized that lunar resources could likely be used to create a space outpost and to get humans to Mars and beyond. That’s why everyone is rushing to get back on the moon — and to be first.
“We need to be there first and greet others,” said U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-kansas), who serves in the Senate aerospace caucus and the Space Force caucus. “We are behind in this new space race.
“Dominance in space will be a key factor in ensuring … our security in years to come.”
Others leaned in more toward international cooperation.
Aschbacher noted that Russia and China have invited ESA to participate in lunar missions, and the agency provided tracking for China’s lunar probes, the latest of which was launched last year. ESA also has what he termed “valuable” partnerships with NASA, including for the Artemis lunar mission.
That’s the general backdrop for figuring out international space traffic control and debris mitigation.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in July issued a memorandum on five “Tenets of Responsible Behavior in Space.”
They are: “operate in, from, to and through space with due regard to others and in a professional manner; limit the generation of long-lived debris; avoid the creation of harmful interference; maintain safe separation and safe trajectory, and communicate and make notifications to enhance the safety and stability of the domain.”
That’s a lot like what the UNOOSA promotes in its treaties and guidelines.
And a lot like what Ceperley means when he talks about good behavior.
So maybe there’s hope for more international agreement — especially if the United States tones down its “dominance in space” rhetoric.