No Clear Answers Seen for Questions of FCC Orbital Debris Jurisdiction
While questions have come from its own eighth floor and from the Commerce Department about the role the FCC should take in orbital debris oversight, space experts tell us it's not clear who, if anyone, could fill the agency's role. Also last week, Commissioner Brendan Carr noted his hopes (see 1905090031) the agency gets input from expert agencies like NASA. He called this literally "rocket science," speaking on C-SPAN's The Communicators. Who should be the orbital debris czar "is the central question of the entire space traffic management debate," said Secure World Foundation technical adviser Brian Weeden. He was among the experts we interviewed.
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While the Trump administration has proposed Commerce and its Bureau of Space Commerce take over implementing and enforcing debris mitigation for private-sector space activities, that idea seemingly has little traction in Congress, Weeden said. It's likely the whole issue gets pushed off until after the 2020 presidential election, he said.
It makes sense for Commerce to be the home for some mitigation but not all activity, Weeden said. To be successful, buy-in from across government is needed, and the politics don't support all this work being the domain of one agency right now, he said. He said the Transportation Department might make more sense as a home for space traffic management and safety-related issues because of its overall safety expertise and the interface between space and air traffic.
While Commerce could theoretically take up the torch as orbital debris lead agency, that would require a notable bump in resources and personnel, said Northern Sky Research analyst Shagun Sachdeva. Until then, the FCC seems more than able, she said. And while the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation has more resources than Commerce's Office of Space Commerce, "they're crunched as well" dealing with the proliferation of launch vehicles coming to market, added NSR analyst Leena Pivovarova. Sachdeva said there haven't been broad industry concerns about FCC handling of orbital debris oversight so far. "It's more a concern about what's about to happen" with the expected non-geostationary orbit satellite boom and if related issues can be better managed, she said.
While the White House would like to see a one-stop shop for regulating space, that's "easier said than done," said George Washington University Space Policy Institute Director Henry Hertzfeld. Given the way federal regulation is organized now -- with different agencies having distinctly different jurisdictions like the FAA over just launch and re-entry and NOAA over just remote sensing -- the issue of a lead agency on debris is more complicated than just pointing to one, he said. He said a path to one clear debris czar agency might get more clear as the U.S. institutes better methods of identifying debris' location and source. As to whether Congress is interested in the issue, Hertzfeld said current political gridlock could be a major challenge, at least barring an orbital disaster as impetus.
Having one lead on orbital debris in the U.S. is complicated the issue being a military as well as commercial one, and there are multiple interests to balance domestically and internationally, emailed Saadia Pekkanen, University of Washington outer space law professor. Commerce has suggested the FCC pause its current orbital debris rules update proceeding and let its direction be guided by parallel FAA orbital debris reforms (see 1904080033). Chairman Ajit Pai's office didn't comment.
"I don't think [Pai] can" hold off, given how non-geostationary mega constellations are starting to be launched now, while a timeline for an inter-agency approach is unclear, SWF's Weeden said. SpaceX Thursday launched the first batch of its planned Starlink broadband mega constellation (see 1905240017) while OneWeb launched its first batch in February (see 1902280007). Amazon has plans for its own mega constellation (see 1904040034).
It would take "a radical rewrite" of current authorizations for FCC oversight to change, and that doesn't seem in the cards politically for now, Weeden said. The agency should be involved in implementing and enforcing debris standards as opposed to crafting them alone, and updating standards needs to be done at the inter-agency level, like Commerce suggested to the FCC, he said.
There needs to be a coordinated federal policy across agencies to avoid chaos but also a global approach to those same rules, NSR's Sachdeva said. Guidelines used globally today such as a 25-year standard for disposing of a satellite were voluntarily modeled after NASA suggestions, but many of those are now "horrendously outdated," Pivovarova said. She said a big question is whether the world largely follows U.S. lead again on its current orbital debris push.