The cost of (Un)regulation: Shrinking Earth's orbits and the need for sustainable space governance

Darrell Martin-Lawson; Stefania Paladini; Krishnendu Saha; Erez Yerushalmi

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119382

The cost of (Un)regulation: Shrinking Earth's orbits and the need for sustainable space governance

Darrell Martin-Lawson, Stefania Paladini, Krishnendu Saha, Erez Yerushalmi

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

7 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Outer space is infinite, usable planetary orbits are not. This makes the Earth?s orbit a unique case of an Area Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) complex to address, difficult to use in a sustainable and equitable way and almost intractable to regulate at an international level. As of 2023, we remain far from attaining a sustainable orbital environment, and future uses of the Earth's orbits for new satellite constellations appear now increasingly at risk. Adopting a probability-based empirical model to project the growth trajectory of objects in space, this article argues that the sector will cross a 'critical density' threshold within the upcoming years unless strong remedial actions to clear up the orbits are implemented and estimates the potential costs of active debris removal measures. Our findings suggest that orbital sustainability is unlikely to come from technology alone, no matter how advanced or ground-breaking. A long-term solution will necessarily require a radical rewriting of the outdated, often conflicting international regulatory framework, which contributed to creating this debris crisis in the first place, shrinking the Earth?s orbit to (almost) the point of no return.

Original language	English
Article number	119382
Journal	Journal of Environmental Management
Volume	349
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119382
Publication status	Published (VoR) - 10 Nov 2023

Funding

The most comprehensive and long-serving tracking system is the one provided by the Department of Defence US Space Surveillance Network (SSN) that includes “launch detection and tracking, conjunction assessment and collision avoidance, human spaceflight support, manoeuvre detection, breakup identification, and re-entry assessment” (Joint Task Force-Space Defense, 2022).To pin-point the growth rate of trackable objects gT, we assume it follows the economic growth rate of the space sector. We compute an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression whereby the dependant variable is the log of the known trackable objects (from January 2011 to January 2022), and the independent variable is the log of global space economy (GSE). The Space Foundation (2021) estimates GSE in terms of a revenue-base valuation that includes all commercial revenue from space products, services, infrastructure, and support industries as well as the space budgets of US and Non-US governments. The coefficient retrieved is the elasticity between the average growth rate of GSE and trackable objects, ϵT=1.3 (with 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.5 to 1.0).Market leaders in this field are Clearspace (2023) and Astroscale (2023). ClearSpace, the Swiss-based leader of in–orbit servicing created in 2018, secured approximately $28 mln in funding from ESA and other partners to launch in 2026 its first space debris removal mission ClearSpace-1. The UK-based Astroscale (2023) is another well-known presence into the ADR sector, with funding of around USD 376 mln and both the support of JAXA (Japanese Space Agency) and ESA. Both are good examples of the rising market value predicted for this sector but also the space agencies’ growing awareness of the severity of the debris issue. Initiatives such as Net Zero Space (2023) or ELSA-D orbital removal mission (Astroscale, 2022) will likely become more frequent in the next coming years.

Keywords

space sustainability
space debris
areas beyond national jurisdiction
active debris removal
Environmental economics
Sustainability development

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10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119382

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title = "The cost of (Un)regulation: Shrinking Earth's orbits and the need for sustainable space governance",

abstract = "Outer space is infinite, usable planetary orbits are not. This makes the Earth?s orbit a unique case of an Area Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) complex to address, difficult to use in a sustainable and equitable way and almost intractable to regulate at an international level. As of 2023, we remain far from attaining a sustainable orbital environment, and future uses of the Earth's orbits for new satellite constellations appear now increasingly at risk. Adopting a probability-based empirical model to project the growth trajectory of objects in space, this article argues that the sector will cross a 'critical density' threshold within the upcoming years unless strong remedial actions to clear up the orbits are implemented and estimates the potential costs of active debris removal measures. Our findings suggest that orbital sustainability is unlikely to come from technology alone, no matter how advanced or ground-breaking. A long-term solution will necessarily require a radical rewriting of the outdated, often conflicting international regulatory framework, which contributed to creating this debris crisis in the first place, shrinking the Earth?s orbit to (almost) the point of no return.",

keywords = "space sustainability, space debris, areas beyond national jurisdiction, active debris removal, Environmental economics, Sustainability development",

author = "Darrell Martin-Lawson and Stefania Paladini and Krishnendu Saha and Erez Yerushalmi",

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year = "2023",

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AU - Yerushalmi, Erez

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AB - Outer space is infinite, usable planetary orbits are not. This makes the Earth?s orbit a unique case of an Area Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) complex to address, difficult to use in a sustainable and equitable way and almost intractable to regulate at an international level. As of 2023, we remain far from attaining a sustainable orbital environment, and future uses of the Earth's orbits for new satellite constellations appear now increasingly at risk. Adopting a probability-based empirical model to project the growth trajectory of objects in space, this article argues that the sector will cross a 'critical density' threshold within the upcoming years unless strong remedial actions to clear up the orbits are implemented and estimates the potential costs of active debris removal measures. Our findings suggest that orbital sustainability is unlikely to come from technology alone, no matter how advanced or ground-breaking. A long-term solution will necessarily require a radical rewriting of the outdated, often conflicting international regulatory framework, which contributed to creating this debris crisis in the first place, shrinking the Earth?s orbit to (almost) the point of no return.

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KW - Environmental economics

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The cost of (Un)regulation: Shrinking Earth's orbits and the need for sustainable space governance

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Keywords

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