WASHINGTON, Oct 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The internet of space is here.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted this week using a connection provided by
the first satellites in his high-speed Starlink constellation, which one day
could include… 42,000 mini-satellites.
The idea of putting tens of thousands more satellites into orbit, as
compared with the roughly 2,000 that are currently active around the Earth,
highlights the fact that space is a legal twilight zone.
Experts debated the subject at length this week in Washington at the 70th
International Astronautical Conference.
The treaties that have governed space up until now were written at a time
when only a few nations were sending civilian and military satellites into
orbit.
Today, any university could decide to launch a mini-satellite.
That could yield a legal morass.
Roughly 20,000 objects in space are now big enough — the size of a fist or
about four inches (10 centimeters) — to be catalogued.
That list includes everything from upper stages and out-of-service
satellites to space junk and the relatively small number of active
satellites.
A disused satellite at an altitude of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) will
eventually fall back into the atmosphere, but only after about 1,000 years,
according to French expert Christophe Bonnal.
Bonnal, who chairs the International Astronautical Federation’s committee
on space debris, explains that during those years, the object — traveling
30,000 kilometers an hour — could end up colliding with a live satellite and
killing it.
For now, that possibility is rare — as an example, Bonnal says there are
only 15 objects bigger than a fist above France at any given time.
“Space is infinitely empty — this is not like maritime pollution,” he told
AFP.
Jean-Yves Le Gall, the head of France’s space agency and the outgoing IAF
president, also downplayed the issue.
“There are practically no examples of satellite problems caused by space
debris,” Le Gall told AFP.
“But this is starting to be a more urgent concern because of the
(satellite) constellation projects. It’s clear that even if we only had to
think about SpaceX’s constellation, the issue would need to be addressed.”
For Le Gall, Musk’s company “isn’t doing anything against the rules. The
problem is that there are no rules. There are air traffic controllers for
planes. We will end up with something similar.”
– Thousands of pieces of junk –
Jan Woerner, the director general of the European Space Agency, admits:
“The best situation would be to have international law… but if you ask for
that, it will take decades.”
So far, only France has stipulated in its own laws that any satellite in
low orbit must be removed from orbit in 25 years.
The US space agency NASA and others have adopted rules for their own
satellites, but without legal constraints.
So the space agencies and industry power players are hoping that everyone
will voluntarily adopt rules of good behavior, defining things like the
required space between satellites, coordination and data exchanges.
Various codes and standards were put down on paper from the 1990s, notably
under the auspices of the United Nations.
One of the most recent charters was created by the Space Safety Coalition –
– so far, 34 actors including Airbus, Intelsat and the OneWeb constellation
project have signed on.
The problem with such charters is that one major new satellite
constellation project that refuses to play along could make things difficult
for everyone.
“It’s a very classic problem with polluters,” says Carissa Christensen, the
CEO of Bryce Space and Technology, an analytics and engineering firm.
“This is very typical of issues where there are long-term challenges, and
costs and benefits.”
In addition, national space agencies would like to clean up Earth’s orbits,
which are now strewn with junk from 60 years of space history.
Three large US rocket stages mysteriously “fragmented” last year, says
Bonnal — that created 1,800 pieces of debris.
The French expert says removing just a few large objects a year would help.
One example would be the stages of the Soviet-era Zenit rockets, which each
weigh nine tons and are nine meters long. Every month, they pass within 200
meters of one another.
If two of them collide, it would double the number of objects in orbit.
But for now, no one knows how to remove these giant objects from space.
In the short term, a best practices manual may be the best solution.
Experts also hope that SpaceX manages to maintain control of its satellites
as Starlink takes shape.
Already, of the first 60 satellites launched, three of them — five percent
— stopped responding after just a month in orbit.