Speaker
Description
Large-constellation deployment has outgrown a debris-mitigation framework designed for a less congested orbital environment. Standards developed for individual missions and comparatively slow replenishment cycles are under pressure from continuous launch activity, rapid satellite replacement, and disposal practices whose cumulative effects span operators and accumulate over time. The regulatory question is not simply how to secure post-mission disposal in the narrow sense, but whether existing mitigation standards can still preserve long-term orbital usability amid conditions of sustained traffic growth.
At the centre of the issue lies a mismatch between regulatory form and operational reality. Large constellations operate as integrated systems characterised by continual renewal, persistent conjunction exposure, and repeated disposal events. Treating them as discrete missions obscures the aggregate effects of scale, replacement tempo, disposal reliability, and interaction with an increasingly crowded space environment. Formal compliance with existing mitigation guidelines does not, by itself, resolve those cumulative risks.
The paper addresses this problem through a doctrinal and policy analysis of national licensing practice, continuing supervision under Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty, and the emerging shift from debris mitigation toward broader space-capacity governance. It proposes three regulatory adjustments: licensing criteria calibrated to constellation-scale operations rather than single-satellite missions; supervisory review linked to in-orbit performance and disposal outcomes; and accountability mechanisms that evaluate environmental effect in operational terms rather than by reference to design-stage commitments alone.
No wholly new legal order is required. What is required is a stricter and more operational use of existing authorisation and supervision tools, so that debris-mitigation policy remains credible in an orbital environment it was not designed to govern.
| Which section would you like to submit your abstract to? | Session 9: “Space debris mitigation policies” |
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