Space Traffic Management National Policy Directive Seen Coming Soon
After last month's White House commercial space policy directive for regulatory reform of space activities, (see 1805240031), another space policy directive is being prepared on space traffic management, NASA acting Chief of Staff Tom Cremins told an American Bar Association…
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event Thursday. He said it potentially could be signed at the next National Space Council meeting, and the aim is to create norms that allow responsible growth. State Department Director-Space and Advanced Technology Ken Hodgkins said there are international implications and concerns about in-orbit satellite servicing, with some countries not liking the idea of an outside party moving their satellites. He said there needs to be a licensing regime for such activities and a governmental understanding on who's responsible and liable for such missions, and where the line lies on liability when a U.S repurposing vehicle mates with another country’s satellite. Those issues “aren’t show stoppers per se” but need to be sorted through, he said. Embry-Riddle assistant professor of commercial Space operations Diane Howard said there’s a perception problem about space traffic management and the concept of a governing body directing traffic, and more focus is needed on space traffic coordination, with its inherent implication of involving parties that have some free agency. Panelists debated the Outer Space Treaty (OST) level of permissiveness for nontraditional activities. Hodgkins said it has long been U.S. policy to pursue or allow activities it thinks are permissible and then to justify them to the world. “If we set a model that makes sense, we want the rest of the world to follow that,” he said. Hodgkins said that minus particular restrictions in the OST, such as appropriation of territory, "you can do pretty much whatever you want to." OST isn't so much permissive as it contains rights and obligations and duties along with freedoms, and needs to be taken in totality and not in parsed-out sections, said space lawyer Oonagh Sands. She said language in the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act (HR-2809), passed by the House in April and now before the Senate, indicating the U.S. won't consider space a global commons, is "a most strange proposition” and doesn't fit with international law.