With SpaceX's Mega-Constellation Approved, Some Expect Talk of Quicker De-Orbiting

The international norm of requiring de-orbiting a satellite within 25 years of retirement "just doesn't work" for mega constellations of hundreds or thousands of satellites, said Ray Sedwick, director-Center for Orbital Debris Education and Research, University of Maryland. Iridium "led the charge" with its pledge to de-orbit its first-generation and Next satellites within a year of retirement, and that far-shorter approach needs to be applied to new non-geostationary orbit systems, Sedwick said. But that shorter span might still not suffice since the constellation's size carries with it the higher likelihood of satellites potentially becoming inoperative at a high rate, he said. It's not clear if satellite operators might oppose rules for shorter de-orbiting windows for NGSOs, but NGSO operators are increasingly "coming around" to the idea, Sedwick said.

Twenty-five years is "an awful long time" given the number of satellites proposed to be launched, said satellite lawyer Steve Goodman of Butzel Long. He said it's also possible the FCC could pursue requirements that smallsats be trackable and monitored. The Office of Engineering and Technology last year rejected four proposed Swarm Technologies cubesats because they were too small, below the size threshold for detection by the federal Space Surveillance Network (see 1803200003).

Goodman said there's international recognition of the debris and traffic management issues raised by giant smallsat constellations, but addressing issues internationally is a slow process. He said there's no formal physical coordination of the way ITU coordinates spectrum issues, but administrations like NASA and the European Space Agency informally try to coordinate. He said since a foreign-licensed NGSO system seeking U.S. landing rights would have to go through the FCC, the agency has "a jurisdictional hook" for addressing such issues.

It's not clear what good options the FCC has, since no one has operated constellations so large before, said Secure World Foundation Director-Program Planning Brian Weeden. Understanding of the space environment and debris "is not great" to begin with, and the space environment is changing with the growing number of satellites and actors, leading to increasingly complex interactions, he said. He said ESA modeling showed anything beyond the 25-year window for de-orbiting can greatly exacerbate debris and physical coordination problems, though there's sizable debate over whether that ceiling should be lower. He said SpaceX and OneWeb pledged far shorter de-orbiting timeframes, but one area of concern is that those are voluntary pledges without a regulatory requirement to hold them to it.

Meanwhile there's a broader U.S. government debate about reshaping the entire licensing framework, Weeden said. The National Space Council talk of reorganizing within the Commerce Department (see 1802210019) is aimed at “shaking up the existing FAA, FCC, NOAA division of labor” and having all debris mitigation and new space licensing activities be directly under Commerce, with the FCC retaining its role of spectrum licensing and the FAA retaining its role of launch and re-entry licensing, Weeden said. However, even if Congress ultimately moves debris responsibilities to Commerce, it's likely that agency would follow whatever practices have been set in place by the FCC, he said.

SpaceX is pledging its satellites will de-orbit within a year of end of life -- far sooner than the 25-year international standard, the FCC said in its order and authorization Thursday. It also noted the company must comply with any new orbital debris requirements. The agency said it agreed with NASA concerns that the expected smallsat boom "will necessitate a further assessment of the appropriate reliability standards of these spacecraft" and of their de-orbiting methods. It conditioned the SpaceX OK on FCC approval of the company updating its orbital debris mitigation plans.

The FCC rejected a SpaceX-sought waiver of milestone requirements, saying the company didn't provide sufficient grounds for why one's needed. SpaceX asked that the six-year milestone for launch and operating its satellites apply only to its initial deployment of 1,600 satellites instead of all 4,425 over six years. The agency said SpaceX could resubmit a waiver request later when it will have better information about the progress of building and launching its constellation.

"Although we still have much to do with this complex undertaking, this is an important step toward SpaceX building a next-generation satellite network that can link the globe with reliable and affordable broadband service, especially reaching those who are not yet connected," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement.

The risk of collisions that cause debris is low today, but more satellite operators putting up more satellites that are too small to easily track means the frequency of accidents "is bound to increase," Rosenworcel said in a statement with the SpaceX approval. Beyond a comprehensive collision and debris policy, she said the agency also needs to more closely coordinate with other federal bodies "to figure out what our national policies are for this jumble of new space activity." She called it "a glaring omission" that the FCC doesn't have a spot on the reconstituted National Space Council, saying the "unseemly mistake ... deserves a fix."

The approval for SpaceX's 2016 application (see 1611160010) follows agency NGSO constellation OKs for OneWeb (see 1706220039) and Space Norway and Telesat Canada (see 1711030063). Chairman Ajit Pai had pushed for SpaceX approval as a route to closing the digital divide (see 1802140028).

The small satellites licensing streamlining NPRM on the April agenda (see 1803260028) briefly mentions debris and collision risk issues. In the item, the FCC seeks comment on a proposal that smallsat applicants must certify their satellites won't release operational debris. It also proposes that applicants certify the probability of each satellite's risk of accidental explosion be less than one in 1,000 -- the same technical guidelines NASA follows for its missions -- which would reduce the chance of a satellite colliding with a significant fragment to an estimated one in 100,000. The FCC said it sought comment on whether that metric is sufficient or if it should seek a more stringent one in light of the multiple satellites to be deployed.

Existing space debris mitigation guidelines could be a basis for regulating small satellites and related debris issues, but the problem is satellite companies "have a patchy record of compliance, at best," perhaps requiring "more robust" enforcement, according to a European Space Agency paper presented at last year's European Conference on Space Debris.

The various NGSO constellations being proposed would ultimately make up 20,000 payloads needing launching over the next decade -- an extraordinary number given that mankind has done 7,500 to date, said Ted Muelhaupt, Aerospace associate principal director-systems analysis and simulation subdivision. "Business as usual isn't going to work" regarding collision avoidance, he said. While currently there are no regulatory requirements regarding a satellite system's reliability and failure rate, those are "critical drivers" of collisions and conjunction warnings -- alerts about satellites potentially coming troublesomely close to one another -- and the regulatory regime might have to start requiring mandating reliability standards, he said.