More Players in Outer Space Seen Leading to More Rules, Norms Clarity
As more nations and commercial operators enter space, hazy international space norms and rules will start to crystalize, said State Department international space lawyer Gabriel Swiney at an International Institute of Space Law symposium Wednesday. The Outer Space Treaty's Article IX "due regard" provision -- requiring a party to consider the impact of its actions and refrain from behavior that doesn’t give due regard to interests of others -- could become the enforcement teeth for those norms, he said.
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Until now, most space operations didn't have to worry about physically interfering with other actors, but emerging applications like satellite mega-constellations and on-orbit servicing are fundamentally different, Swiney said. The due regard provision can require "deconflict" mechanisms and give those mechanisms legal force, he said. On tools for forcing international compliance, "We've got nothing else," he said. European Space Agency Chief Strategy Officer Kai-Uwe Schrogl said other nations are questioning whether provisions in international agreements like the Outer Space Treaty and Moon Treaty are still accepted and if improvements, stronger implementation or even new international agreements are needed.
Commerce Department Office of Space Commerce Director Kevin O'Connell said the agency is working toward its goal of being the "one-stop shop" for space regulation that's guided by a general principle of permissiveness, and it's figuring out how "legally and appropriately" to bring FCC and its orbital space debris proceeding (see 1811150028) into that discussion. O'Connell said to gin up the nation's commercial space industry requires investment beyond the venture capital community, and Commerce is trying to figure out how to get major financial institutions interested.
Sources of data about what's being tracked in orbit often disagree with each other, and those different results make senseless the requirement in the FCC orbital debris NPRM about calculating probabilities of collisions, said Moriba Jah, University of Texas-Austin associate professor of aerospace engineering. He said the agency's oversight also suffers because there's no third-party verification of the analyses companies use. Space situational awareness company ExoAnalytic Solutions Senior Systems Engineer Phillip Cunio said with more such companies forming, good SSA and space traffic management best practices are still evolving.
SSA capabilities are growing globally, motivated in large part by the growing understanding of weaknesses in the U.S.-maintained database, such as incomplete data, and nations wanting to reduce dependence on the U.S. for data and space services, according to a presentation by Bhavya Lal, researcher-Institute for Defense Analyses' Science and Technology Policy Institute.
The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space has agreed on guidelines for space sustainability, after years of effort, said Secure World Foundation Executive Director Peter Martinez. But he said the fate of other draft guidelines remains in limbo. The nonbinding guidelines are only practical if implemented widely, and nations are implementing them now, with hopes aspiring space actors follow suit, Martinez said.