Managing space traffic has become a challenge for regulators. Kevin Quezada / Unsplash
Space may seem endlessly enormous, but the air above the Earth is actually very full – and ready to become more. According to the latest figures from the European Space Agency, there are more than 29,000 objects larger than 10 cm in diameter, including thousands of active and dead satellites, orbiting the Earth at various heights. And every year, more than 100 rockets explode and launch something new into space. It is estimated that, by 2025, the number of man-made objects sent into space per year will grow to 1,100.
Lately, the busiest space activities have come from SpaceX. Its constellation-based broadband Internet project, Starlink, has launched satellites this year at an average rate of one mission per month. Since its inception, SpaceX has sent more than 600 Starlink satellites to orbit and plans to launch thousands more. (SpaceX also launches satellite satellites as part of its satellite rideshare program.)
The Starlink team currently produces 120 Starlink satellites each month. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted SpaceX radio spectrum arrangement for 12,000 Starlink satellites. And the company has applied for priority spectrum rights to 30,000 additional satellites with the agency.
“Space can appear endless, but opportunities to place and maintain an object safely in the Earth’s orbit are not. The risk of collisions between objects in space is very real, and large collisions have already occurred. Even a single collision can produce a dangerous pun field that can destroy a range of critical capabilities on which we depend, such as global communications and navigation, and the astronauts stationed in the International Space Station can pose a danger. In addition, the financial consequences could be monumental, ”Michael Dominguez, a former senior DOD official and chairman of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), wrote in an op-ed to the government this week.
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Other private space efforts, including Amazon and UK-based OneWeb, also want to compete with SpaceX in this new area.
Later last month, Amazon received approval from the FCC to use a similar Internet-radiating constellation named Kuiper, which was first announced last year. The proposed constellation will contain 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit.
OneWeb has planned a smaller constellation of about 1,000 satellites to achieve the same functionality. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in March and is currently in talks with the UK government over a bailout deal.
In the US, satellite and space location information was historically provided by the Department of Defense. But because the number of objects in orbit has increased rapidly in recent years, the DOD guidance was not sufficient. That, in 2018, the Trump administration issued a mandate (Space Policy Directive 3) to take over responsibilities for coordinating space travel activities to the Department of Commerce.
“There is now an imperative to act, and the concept of exercising the spatial awareness of the space awareness and traffic management situation must not only be effective, but it must also stimulate innovation, both in situ awareness. / traffic management and in space-based commerce, ”Dominguez added.
NAPA is instructed by Congress to assess which government agency under NASA, the FAA and DOD has the best capacity to manage space travel and situational awareness.
