A sustainable geostationary space environment requires new norms of behavior

Abstract

Modern life is increasingly dependent on space technologies such as satellite communication, positioning, and remote sensing, but the political system that has enabled these advances remains fragile. In this essay, we highlight normative contestation—disagreements between space stakeholders in how operators should be expected to behave—in the geosynchronous orbital regime (GEO) as a threat to a secure and sustainable space domain. This conflict stems primarily from the interactions between limited resources (e.g. physical space, electromagnetic spectrum assignments) and the emphasis on maintaining total state sovereignty and independence of policy in the international arena. To preserve the peaceful use of the GEO regime, space actors must act soon to establish norms of behavior that dissuade maneuvers which place satellites close together on orbit.

Policies for incentivizing orbital debris assessment and remediation

“…Even if the U.S. dramatically increases its ADR research spending with the intent to fund the rise of an American competitor to Japanese and European debris removal technologies, it may still be disallowed from deorbiting the Russian rocket bodies deemed most dangerous without the explicit consent of Russia, the nominal owner of those pieces of junk. The same technological advancements which might enable the close approaches necessitated by ADR have previously produced international controversy because they may also be used for spying, hacking or outright destruction of a satellite [45]. Both ADR technologies and the sharing of mission data required for ADR may even fall under export controls, further increasing the difficulty of full transparency and technological diffusion [46].…”