Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos flew into orbit, three U.S. flights to the International Space Station (ISS) took place in July, and SpaceX has launched 88 satellites into orbit in the past six weeks. Traffic is booming. And this is just the beginning of an increase in commercial and governmental activity in space.
August will see several more trips to the ISS and more satellite launches. Additionally, the Biden administration signed an agreement with the European Space Agency to use more satellites to address climate change through earth science research. This increase in space traffic serves multiple purposes and represents a huge investment by the private space industry and governments. But those investments are increasingly endangered by the vast amount of space junk already orbiting Earth.
There’s plenty of space out there, and believe it or not, NASA estimates that there are 23,000 pieces over 10 cm and over 500,000 small pieces of junk in orbit. This space junk or orbital debris moves at high speeds, and even small pieces can cause severe damage or destruction if they collide with a spacecraft or satellite.
Space debris includes thousands of dead and retired satellites, parts of spacecraft used on decades of missions, items detonated in war tests, and more.
Dodging space junk is a normal requirement for spacecraft in orbit. The International Space Station says he will have to make 25 maneuvers between 1999 and 2018 to avoid collisions, and in 2020 he will have to dodge debris three times. I did.
Monitoring this debris will become a major problem as commercial space travel and the space economy grow.In 2019, the global space economy reached about $366 billion. Of this, $271 billion was spent on the satellite industry and $123 billion was spent directly on satellite services. As the world becomes more dependent on satellites, the U.S. and global satellite business bears the brunt of its failure to track and remove orbital debris.
As Senator John Hickenlooper (Democrat, Colorado), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on science and space, recently said, “Rather than learning from horrific accidents, we should be proactive about space debris. ‘Needs to work’ has a sense of urgency that we need. ”
Urgency means working on better space traffic management and tracking and removing orbital debris.
Orbital debris management is poorly organized within government. Today, the Department of Defense (DOD) does most of the tracking of US space debris out of a need to protect military satellites and national security interests. NASA has its own unsophisticated system for tracking debris. But orbital debris management is no longer just about tracking debris. It is also important to form a collision warning system and safely manage traffic in space. To do this efficiently, a private repository of all orbital debris components is required. It was created independently by many commercial space companies to keep them aware of orbital debris and to protect their satellites in space.
Tracking debris may be a national security priority, but providing space traffic control is not the Pentagon’s mission.
We should leverage the private sector’s expertise and progress in this area. For example, Astroscale has contracts with both Japanese and European space agencies to develop orbital debris removal capabilities. Also, development responsibilities for collision warning and space traffic management are best suited to the Office of Space Commerce, an office with existing ties to the commercial space industry, NASA, and the Department of Defense.
Partnering with debris tracking and removal systems being developed by private companies, freeing up the DOD to focus on military awareness and NASA on research and development is the most efficient way forward.
The United States can best address the threat posed by orbital debris and create sustainable policies for safe space exploration when governments work with private industry through strategic public-private partnerships.
Adrian Moore is Vice President, Rebecca van Burken is a Senior Policy Fellow at the Reason Foundation, and they are the authors of the report. “U.S. Space Traffic Management and Orbital Debris Policy”
