Possible Institutional and Financial Arrangements for Active Removal of Orbital Space Debris

The topic of cosmic hazards is most closely associated with comets and asteroids that might crash into Earth with devastating effect. The truth is that in the nearer term adverse solar events might threaten Earth with powerful coronal mass ejections that could also result in a number of disaster scenarios. When these catastrophic events are the focus, the more modest issue of orbital debris is clearly seen as far less threatening. But the truth is that orbital debris also constitutes serious hazards to future human progress and safety in many different ways. Orbital debris will have an increasing chance of disabling critical satellite infrastructure – particularly in low Earth orbit – that can jeopardize critical services and in the case of major collision escalate the buildup of orbital debris even further. Orbital debris is nothing like the threat to life on Earth of say a category 10 asteroid on the Torino Scale colliding with Earth (“the Torino Impact Hazard Scale”), yet this hazard represents a serious problem to the long-term sustainability of space operations that will only get worse unless an active program to undertake debris removal is initiated. Most of what is written about space debris focuses on their characterization in terms of size number and orbital mechanics, the space technology needed to remove debris from orbit, or relevant regulatory issues. Technical papers such as the chapter written by Dr. Heiner Klinkrad describe such aspects as the growing extent of the problem and the factors that are contributing to the rate of buildup of debris. Other chapters of a technical nature often address the very important issue of the best approaches that can be used for debris removal and remediation.

Regulatory papers, such as the chapter by Dr. Ram Jakhu and Dr. Fabio Tronchetti, on the other hand, address the current “due-diligence procedures” that are aimed at preventing or minimizing the creation of new debris. They also consider the questions of liability and legal responsibility and efforts aimed to create new regulatory processes within the UN system to control debris and/or remove debris from orbit.

The focus of this chapter, however, is on examining the merits of establishing national, regional, and in time perhaps universal agreements to establish economic funds or entirely new international cooperative mechanisms to oversee the removal and mitigation process. The purpose of such a new international entity or international fund would be manyfold. Such mechanisms or economic processes would create financial incentives both to prevent new debris from occurring and for the removal of existing debris. It would create a recognized international process for active debris removal that would be consistent with existing UN treaties and to which all countries would be able to respond. Such an active response would be in recognition of the incentives for active debris removal as well as penalties associated with either the creation of new debris or not supporting the removal of debris.

The ability to create universally accepted new international mechanisms to undertake such tasks as active debris removal is more difficult than it was several decades ago. This is due to the ever-increasing number of nations who are now within the UN system and that now participate in COPUOS, the lack of a cohesive support for coordinated world initiatives – such as existed immediately after World War 2 – and the divergence of world economic, political, and strategic interests in outer space. This divergence of views is particularly noticeable in the outer space arena since this sector is often associated with military and strategic applications on the part of many spacefaring nations. This divergence of views suggests that any new international arrangements related to the active removal of orbital debris will most likely follow an evolutionary path. In short, any longer-term international consensus to address the orbital debris problem will most likely be developed slowly over time. Since the key UN space treaties were developed in the 1960s and early 1970s, no major new space conventions have been agreed since.

This chapter thus discusses possible evolutionary processes – led by economic mechanisms or active mitigation and removal techniques that directly reduce the orbital debris buildup. These processes are most likely to start – at the national and regional level and ultimately transition to the global level as time goes by. This might lead to longer-term efforts to create an international mechanism or organizational mechanism to address not only the space debris problem but perhaps other space operations issues such as commercial space flight safety, space traffic management, space and improvement in the near-Earth space environment, etc. (Jakhu et al. (2011) The need for an integrated regulatory regime for aviation and space: an ICAO for space? Springer Wien, New York).