US Space Traffic Management Handover Being Determined, Experts Say
The Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) almost certainly will get out of the business of space traffic management, said Benjamin Roberts, assistant director-civil and commercial space at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. With the Federal Aviation Administration almost surely picking up the space traffic cop job, the key issue is how all that will shake out, he said Thursday at Future Space 2016 during a series of talks about the state of space debris management. The new oversight should come with new technologies and capabilities built in and not just a transfer of the status quo from one body to another, Roberts said.
JSpOC needs to focus national security issues, "not if a screw launched in 1971 is going to crash into the International Space Station," said House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee member Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla. He said a civil agency such as the FAA would have authority the Air Force doesn't to require certain classes of satellites -- such as those operating at altitudes of 700-900 kilometers -- be equipped with transponders and maneuvering capabilities and to move when in danger of collision.
The next six to nine months will likely see various agencies doing research on identifying the issues of space traffic management responsibilities and options for dealing with them, all of which likely will then be waiting for the next presidential administration in 2017, Roberts said. The U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act signed into law last year also requires NASA to commission an outside study of alternate frameworks for management of space traffic and orbital activities. The report should be done in November and will help frame discussions, he said.
Beyond collisions, spectrum interference -- both unintentional and intentional -- is increasingly becoming a satellite concern, said David Cavossa, president-Space 2.0 Consulting. The space spectrum environment is "bad and about to get worse," given the growing number of satellites and terminals expected to become operational in coming years, Cavossa said.
The current U.S. approach to space regulation -- with responsibilities divided among the FCC, FAA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- worked well for decades but now is having problems with space activities that don't fit any of the agencies, such as proposals for asteroid mining or private-sector missions to the moon and Mars, Roberts said. An interagency group sent a proposal to lawmakers about seven months ago that would have the FAA, in the course of its payload review, circulate applications to relevant agencies such as DOD, NASA or the FCC for them to sign off or conditionally sign off on anything that overlaps with their missions, Roberts said. He said the first test of such an approach could come in a couple of years with SpaceX's announced plans to send robots to the moon.
The ITU, flooded with satellite applications, has discussed oversight not just of satellite spectrum but also of the satellites themselves and whether additional regulations for small satellites are needed to ensure no harm to larger satellites, said Brian Weeden, Secure World Foundation senior technical adviser.
The U.S. economy would be decimated if it were to lose its GPS network -- a growing threat as Russia and China develop their own GPS networks at the same time they're working on anti-satellite weaponry, Bridenstine said. "We need to build resilience into our systems, in our American space enterprise." The proliferation of satellite constellations also is a threat due to increased traffic in the 700-900 km altitude band, Bridenstine said.
Pointing to projections of a significant satellite collision every five to nine years, Bridenstine called that "unacceptable. ... We cannot allow that eventuality to be real." That's especially true since the alternative is satellites having to be launched with more shielding, making them heavier and costlier; satellite networks needing more redundancy, also adding to costs; or a U.S. government regulatory shutdown of new launches if one of its own satellites gets hit, he said. "The United States government will not allow this kind of thing to keep happening."