While FCC Considers Active Orbital Debris Requirement, Business Case Questioned
The private sector is working on technology for tackling orbital debris problems, but it's not clear what the business case is to support that industry, space experts told us. Some said if anything drives commercial demand for such offerings in the next few years, it will be mandates such as could come from the FCC's orbital debris proceeding. The draft NPRM adopted in November (see 1811150028) includes questions about whether the FCC should require that satellite operators actively remove debris, acknowledging such operations "remain at the more experimental side" and "have significant costs."
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Satellite operators "are comfortable where they are" because the orbital debris issue remains hypothetical, said Northern Sky Research analyst Shagun Sachdeva. "If and when [a major incident] happens, then people will see the need," she said, saying regulatory action such as by the FCC would at least in the near term be the biggest driver of demand for debris mitigation commercial options. A satellite industry executive said there's been talk of business models such as making money off the value of objects collected in space, but jurisdictional issues -- like a country saying it owns that dead satellite captured in orbit -- could jeopardize that approach.
Sachdeva said there's no clear business case today for debris removal. As small satellite mega constellations go into orbit, risk of collisions increases, potentially making a better business case as satellite operators and launch companies could see value in funding missions to protect their assets, she added.
Startups and space entrepreneurs are trying to create a financial rationale for removal of space debris, which is a growing problem, emailed Scott Hubbard, Stanford University Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation director emeritus. "No one ... wants an unfunded mandate." A "reasonable" idea that has "some traction" is a launch tax, with proceeds going toward ameliorating debris, he said.
Companies “are poking at" the in-orbit servicing market, and debris cleanup missions likely grow out of that since they would be fundamentally similar operations, said Ted Muelhaupt, Aerospace Corp. associate principal director-systems analysis and simulation subdivision. If there are to be orbital debris removal missions, they would need to focus on bigger objects because the biggest potential danger lies in collision of big objects, he said.
Cleveland State University Global Space Law Center Director Mark Sundahl said the market for in-orbit satellite servicing seems more solid than debris cleanup, and it's not clear when a company might want to spend what could be tens of millions of dollars on a mission to remove others' debris. He said in-orbit repair and refueling technology is going to come into place more quickly, and satellites increasingly will be designed and built for repair and refueling, with modular parts and more standard connections.
The debris removal technology under development isn't impressive, said University at Buffalo mechanical and aerospace engineering professor John Crassidis. The market for and technology for removing small debris is questionable, he said. Spending millions for small amounts of debris is "just not cost effective," he said.
Even if the FCC proceeding is delayed in implementation, the FAA and NOAA are in the midst of rule revisions, emailed Brian Weeden, Secure World Foundation program planning director. President Donald Trump last year issued a space policy directive (see 1806180028) that called for reworking government orbital debris mitigation standard practices, so a lot of concepts and ideas floated by the NPRM might be picked up elsewhere if not by the FCC, Weeden said.
The Trump administration's approach in the space policy directive is to base future regulations on industry best practices and standards, but "those don't really exist yet," Weeden said.
Satellite Industry Association President Tom Stroup said satellite industry talks about best practices resulted in a first draft that some companies signed on to, but others have reservations. He said those discussions are on hold while companies focus more on space policy directive issues. Stroup said a big concern in the satellite industry is not so much overregulation via the orbital debris NPRM but a regulatory and policy overreaction if there's an incident in space. He said the U.S. needs to be cognizant that while it wants to take a leadership role in tackling orbital debris, it should be wary of creating regulatory conditions that incentivize companies setting up operations in other countries with more lax rules.
The Global VSAT Forum is working with satellite industry companies and organizations to develop space operation sustainability best practices, emailed Secretary General David Meltzer. "A critical mass of industry members will be willing to publicly support such practices and thereby address this issue."