3–5 Jun 2026
Politecnico di Milano
Europe/Amsterdam timezone

A Tiered Approach to Space Debris Mitigation Policy

3 Jun 2026, 16:30
15m
Politecnico di Milano

Politecnico di Milano

Via La Masa 34, 20156 Milano (MI)

Speaker

Gregory Henning (The Aerospace Corporation)

Description

There are numerous space debris mitigation policy documents around the world, ranging from national and international policy to agency-level policy. In most cases, rules designed to mitigate the impacts of debris are “one-size-fits-all” rules applying to all operators equally. As traffic levels grow and space becomes more congested, current rules may not suffice and will need to be made more stringent. The effects of such rule changes would not impact all operators equally and applying them as such would not be necessary to achieve the desired outcomes. A tiered approach to space debris mitigation policy is presented along with a simple framework for setting tier thresholds that would only require the most stringent rules for those operators that would otherwise contribute the most to space debris risk.

Which section would you like to submit your abstract to? Session 4: “How space debris mitigation can adapt to the space environment?”

Authors

Dominick Bologna (The Aerospace Corporation) Gregory Henning (The Aerospace Corporation) Lily Wahleithner (The Aerospace Corporation) Marlon Sorge (The Aerospace Corporation) Victor Cabrera (The Aerospace Corporation)

Presentation materials