Debris believed to be from a spacecraft launched from French Guiana, found by residents of Salinopolis, Brazil April 28, 2014. The piece of space wreckage bears the logo of the British Space Agency and Arianespace , the European satellite launch company. Image: TARSO SARRAF/AFP via Getty Images
From time to time, space debris passes through the atmosphere and crashes into Earth. Last month, a 23-tonne piece of rocket fell – thankfully safely – into the Pacific Ocean. The debris came from the October 31 launch of China’s Long March 5B rocket, known for its uncontrolled returns to Earth.
You may not have heard much about these crashes until now. But chances are you’ll hear about it in the future. With the space economy taking off, the highways of Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) are becoming increasingly congested. This increases the likelihood of collisions – and crash landings on Earth.
“Even though outer space is infinite, the places where we place satellites are very specific regions,” astrodynamicist Moriba Jah tells ZDNET. “And they are getting more and more crowded.”
Represent spatial objects
Jah is the chief scientist of Privateer, a new venture backed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Privateer’s mission is to improve the visibility of space highways, where satellites pass each other at speeds of 27,500 kilometers per hour. The company wants to provide this visibility through its proprietary Knowledge Graph technology, which allows it to create visualizations of all satellites and debris in space.
Along with its data engine, Privateer has created Wayfinder, an open-access tool that allows others in the space economy to create the visualizations they need to safely occupy low Earth orbit.
Privateer’s Wayfinder app provides visualizations of objects in orbit. Image: Privateer
Jah also wants to convince lawmakers and the public that space should be considered part of our “environment” and deserves the same consideration and respect as our land, sea and air. Because it is a finite resource, the space should also have environmental protection, he says.
57,000 satellites in space in 2030
This means that companies and governments that launch rockets or satellites into space must find responsible ways to bring their space junk back to Earth, as well as responsible ways to manage whatever is still in orbit.
Without this type of space management, random falling space debris will continue to threaten Earthlings with physical harm. In addition, collisions in space have the potential to disrupt all aspects of daily life. There is a growing list of services – including communication tools, navigational aids and financial services, to name a few – that depend on satellites to function.
By letting space become cluttered with waste, we risk losing the opportunity to use space for the benefit of humanity.
“We know more about humans and the Earth from robots in the sky that we call satellites than from any other means of information. Things may be lost because of the growing amount of trash we have in orbit,” he said.
To understand the scale of the problem, consider how quickly humans have launched spacecraft over the past decade. In 2016, there were about 1,700 satellites in low Earth orbit, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. In May 2022, there were more than 5,400. By 2030, according to some estimates, there could be as many as 57,000 satellites in orbit.
Towards an obligation to clean up after oneself
“Countries are rushing to put things into orbit because there’s a lot of money and influence to be gained as a result,” says Jah. “And this is, to a large extent, at the expense of the environment.”
Given the rate at which our orbital highways are filling up, the US Federal Communications Commission recently passed new rules requiring satellite operators to keep the lanes free of unwanted junk. Under these new rules, operators of satellites in low Earth orbit must evacuate their non-functional satellites within five years of the end of their mission.
These rules have not yet been fully adopted by the international community. They do, however, represent an improvement over current guidelines that recommend removing space debris after 25 years. The new five-year rule has many supporters in the space industry because, like Jah, they understand that space is a shared and limited resource.
“There are no real sanctions at the moment”
“It’s a real global commons: space is up there, and nobody owns it,” Mark Dickinson, deputy technical director of satellite service provider Inmarsat, told ZDNET. This is why it is important for all satellite operators to track their own spacecraft.
But Jah and others say the five-year rule doesn’t go far enough. On the one hand, international regulators must ensure that there are consequences for those who do not follow the rules. Mr Dickinson points out that there are already satellites that have been floating in space for more than 25 years after being decommissioned, exceeding current guidelines.
Space waste should be dealt with as quickly as possible and there should be some form of liability if that doesn’t happen, Dickinson said.
“There are no real sanctions at the moment,” he explained. “If someone launches 1,000 spacecraft in LEO and successfully decommissions 90% of them, but leaves 10% behind, there are no real rules about the penalty.”
What to do with satellites in the event of bankruptcy?
In addition, Dickinson added, regulators must grapple with the difficult question of what to do if a satellite company fails.
“If you don’t downgrade… but add all the time, all these constellations, the amount of space fills up,” he said. “And on top of that, these end-of-life satellites are left as trash. And because they’re passive, they can’t avoid a collision.”
Meanwhile, satellite operators who need to dispose of their space junk often dispose of it by “uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry” – in other words, by letting it burn up in the sky as it falls back to Earth. Yet, as the recent crash of China’s Long March 5B rocket demonstrated, the larger a spacecraft, the less likely it is to burn up completely. Spacecraft that burn up in the atmosphere leave behind chemicals that could damage Earth’s ozone layer, researchers say.
Should we manufacture in space?
This is why the United States – through the FCC and the White House – is studying the possibility of supporting construction capabilities in space (ISAM – In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing). ISAM capabilities could include replacing a broken part on a satellite, building a new part, or refueling a spacecraft. All in space.
Just as environmentally conscious people try to minimize their use of single-use plastics, governments should ban or try to minimize the use of single-use satellites, Jah argues.
Under Article XI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the government is responsible for licensing and overseeing all objects that go into space, Jah notes. In theory, a state could therefore require space operators to make their satellites reusable or recyclable before obtaining authorization to put them into orbit.
Towards a responsible approach?
This kind of political mandate might be necessary, given that the economic incentive to create a sustainable space industry does not yet exist.
“Everyone agrees that a new page in our industry is about to be written,” said Maurizio Vanotti, vice president of new markets for satellite connectivity company OneWeb, during a recent webinar on space sustainability. That said, he continued, “there are two aspects to the sustainability of this business – one is the business model, the other is the technology approach. The two things have to go hand in hand.”
OneWeb, which has a constellation of more than 600 satellites in orbit, has taken a “responsible approach” since its inception, Vanotti continued, by building satellites equipped with mooring devices, so they can attach to another spacecraft in the event of a failure.
But for now, it is not really profitable for a satellite operator to launch satellite recovery missions. Jah agreed that there should indeed be recycling stations in orbit.
Mr Jah acknowledges that a number of obstacles stand in the way of a circular space economy.
Source: “ZDNet.com”