👀🛰️👀: Who am I?

BepiColombo cartoon spacecraft ‘hug’ Earth ahead of flyby

Figuring out Spacecraft Identity…

In this article, we’re going to explore the idea behind identity of a spacecraft. I’d imagine it is not as complicated as figuring out identity for humans — I should know, I’ve had two conversations about this on the Clayming Space podcast. We’ll discuss what is the Registration Convention, what it’s meant to do, a bit of background on why it was created and why it is needed more now than ever before and finally ending in why I’m starting here (my thoughts). In the next article we’ll go into a bit more detail on using the registration convention data as our starting point into the ERC standards.

A United Nations (UN) treaty called The Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space [1] is meant to be the defining focal point to identify a State’s international responsibility and liability for space objects that are registered with it. This is a vital mechanism to ensure coordination, internationally via an existing legal framework that governs outer space activities.

Registration Convention

The Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space also known as the Registration Convention, was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly on the 12th November 1974 and came into force on 15th September 1976 with currently 70 nations and 25 signatories [2]. The Registration Convention is one of five space treaties on outer space set forth by the United Nations [3]. Just to close this and establish it here, the five are (in order of establishment):

1. 1967: The “Outer Space Treaty”
2. 1968: The “Rescue Agreement”
3. 1972: The “Liability Convention”
4. 1976: The “Registration Convention”
5. 1984: The “Moon Agreement”

Or as I like to say, when the egos of the USA and USSR were crushed 😏 and they realized (during the Cold War) that space is just too hard for them to do it themselves and let their differences aside to cooperate ☮️🕊️✌️😌🦄.

Its Purpose

The register is meant to provide transparency and build confidence among state actors for international space governance [4] to ensure there is peace, security by clearing misunderstandings, mistrust and errors in calculations relating to the intentions of a state actor’s activities in outer space [5].

The convention is simple — please let us (the UN) know when you launch a spacecraft into orbit from your respective nation-state. The register is administered by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) with the international register maintained by the Secretary General and consists of the following information [6]:

• Name of launching state
• Space object registration number
• Location of the launch or the territory and date
• Basic orbital parameters such as inclination, apogee, perigee and nodal period.
• A general purpose/function of the space object

A Brief Background

Looking back at the history of the Registration Convention, it was the fourth in-line to be ratified among nation states especially independently space-fairing nations like the USA, USSR. The “Outer Space Treaty” dealt with rights claims in outer space of all celestial bodies — to simply put [7], no nation state is allowed to claim a celestial body under its “flag”. Although, there is debate on this issue since, the US did plant a flag when they landed on the Moon but the nuance here is that it (the US flag) represented “all mankind” — Neil Armstrong’s words not mine. The “Rescue Agreement” to simply put, ensures that when a US astronaut is in trouble on a side of the planet that the USSR has access to, the USSR would do an official quid-pro-quo to help and the US would provide the same assistance. This implied to other independent [8] space-fairing nations and future independent space-fairing nations. The “Liability Convention” to simply put, ensures that nation states keep others accountable when their satellite or spacecraft messes up over some other nation states’ skies and/or drops into their lands. This was a national security issue because you don’t want the USSR stealing US tech and vice versa — although it still happened. Also, states that felt the damages of the liable nation would be compensated by the liable state which incentivized non-space fairing nations to ratify the treaty. For these reasons, these latter two treaties were easily signed and ratified as they reflected specific articles of the first one — the Outer Space Treaty [9].

The Registration Convention inherently represented Article VIII of the Outer Space Treaty which puts forward the concept of registration of space objects and its major consequences, the ability to exercise jurisdiction over the space object that is registered. This was closely related to the Rescue and Liability Convention where it balanced the space-fairing states interests of treating their astronauts/cosmonauts with respect while ensuring their space objects were returned to them. It also ensured non-space fairing nations interests by ensuring they were compensated for treating their astronauts/cosmonauts with respect and their space technology. In either case, registration was bread ’n’ butter to ensure reliability in political and/or economic transactions. The registration convention emboldens the prospects of liable states being identified and asserting compensation claims on to them, especially if the non-space fairing nation is the victim of a rogue or damage causing space object. Again, there are nuances and clauses that benefit independent space-fairing nations such as the lack of sanctioning the liable state and more.

Bryce 2020 Year In Review

With the end of the Cold War, these priorities of registration faded away but the aftermaths of space activities (mostly military) led to an increase in space objects from the 1960s through to 1990s (30 years of space junk) where the average orbital launch rate were over 60 per year (bottom right corner in the figure above). There have been several warnings of orbits becoming crowded. The anxiety started after the end of the Cold War, the “war” that made humans think about an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen in the orbital altitudes above us. But, a hiatus of rapid space activities since then until the start of the so-called “NewSpace” (circa 2002) race led by companies like Virgin Galactic, Space Explorations Technologies and others, have had a resurgence in the issue of this environmental catastrophe of crowded orbits come to light.

Solving and managing this issue of crowded orbits, is a first step toward a society like a United Federation of Planets and a Starfleet.

Bryce 2019 Global Space Economy

In 2008, a UN report warned that not acting and managing crowded orbits would lead to a rise in the number of dead satellites littered near the geostationary orbit (GEO) from 200, by fivefold [10]. To put this in a real-world context, the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) constellations like GPS, GLONASS, Galelio, Beidou and others that companies like Uber (Eats), Google, Amazon, Zoom and other tech and tech-enabled companies all rely on these constellations and is a USD $97.4 billion industry as per 2019 metrics and the pandemic just made it more valuable as we rely on all these tech-enabled services.

The Problem

Why it is needed more now than ever

The Registration Convention was meant to be a ledger of all space objects orbiting our planet. While there are several motivations for individual nation states to have such a ledger organized by a global and public figure head such as the UN, it hasn’t been keeping up with its own goals. In fact, there is always a delay between the launch of a space object and the date it was placed on the Registration Convention ledger. A study published in 2020 [11] quantified this delay in registration (between date of launch and registration) and found that there has been a significant decline over time, with an oscillating follow through between 70% and 90% in the past decade. The median delay is different for all nation states with a minimum of 83 days (~ 3 months) and maximum of 342 days (~ 1 year) for all countries with greater than 100 registered satellites.

What this means is, if there was a threat to the planet, we would have an at least 3 month (or more) delay in knowing of that threat, when we could prevent it from launching in the first place.

A study published in 1991 [12] found that the average international registration occurred within a 3 month time period but a more recent 2018 [13] published study found this declining to between 1 to 2 years as a more frequent delay in registration of a state’s space object. The reasons for such delays are still speculative but there have been citied reports saying that it is because of the challenges posed by an increase in a large number of small satellites [14], the complexities when registering “foreign space objects” [15] and new space actors [16].

According to the recent National Academy Of Public Administration (NAPA) report [17] on Space Traffic Management, there are currently 2800 active satellites and it is estimated to exponentially increase 1100 per year. With the resurgence of a new space race driven primarily by commercial actors we will be seeing approximately 10,000 satellites being launched in the next ten years [18]. This new space race needs new models, technologies, guidelines, rules, and regulations. Under the U.S. Space Policy Directive — 3 (SPD-3), “National Space Traffic Management Policy,”, to tackle the broad scope of STM related issues, there will need to be more than 40 distinct standards, best practices and guidelines developed. This development of standards, guidelines and practices have been driven by the recent increase in orbital launches of satellites and will address this rapid growth of orbital activity for the next ten years [19]. This was also stated by the UNOOSA Annual Reports in 2018 regarding increasing number of space objects and in 2019 regarding the increasing space debris [20],[21].

Why Start Here?

As mentioned before, I started diving into this near full time in January this year with the issue of crowded orbits but within that month realized that identity would be required to solve that problem. I briefly dove into a space commodities DEX in February and also realized the issue was the same — space object identity. Which led me to the notion of tackling identity and finding ways to incentivize this problem for the purpose of preventing another environmental disaster. The next step is blending spacecraft identity with crypto or more specifically NFTs. Cryptoeconomic systems provide a strategy to solve problems that are effecting the planet whether its climate change or crowded orbits.

[1] United Nations General Assembly Session 29 Resolution 3235.Convention on Registration of Objects Launched Into Outer Space A/RES/3235(XXIX) 12 November 1974. Retrieved 2021–03–08

[2] “Convention on registration of objects launched into outer space”. United Nations Treaty Collection. Retrieved 2021–03–08.

[3] “Space Law Treaties and Principles“. United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). Retrieved 2021–03–15

[4] Ram S Jakhu, Bhupendra Jasani, and Jonathan C. McDowell. Critical issues related to 465 registration of space objects and transparency of space activities. Acta Astronautica, 143: 406 (2018).

[5] UN GGE. Group of Governmental Experts on Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures in Outer Space Activities. Technical Report July, 2013. Retrieved 2021–03–15

[6] See Footnote [4]

[7] I mention this phrase “simply put” but in reality is “more complex and nuanced”. I try to focus on the main point of these treaties for the sake of this article.

[8] Not all nations are capable of doing a space launch themselves especially during the Cold War period. Therefore, independent means those that are space launch capable nations.

[9] von der Dunk, Frans G., “The Registration Convention: Background and Historical Context” (2003). Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program Faculty Publications. 32.

[10] McKie, R (2008). “Warning of catastrophe from mass of ‘space junk’ — ‘Failure to act would be folly,’ says report to UN”. London: The Observer. Retrieved 2021–03–15

[11] S. Le May, B.A. Carter, S. Gehly, S. Flegel, M. Jah, Representing and querying space object registration data using graph databases, Acta Astronautica (2020).

[12] Robert Wickramatunga. Review and analysis of the register of space objects. Space Policy, 7 (1):77–81, 1991. ISSN 02659646. doi: 10.1016/0265–9646(91)90049-N.

[13] See Footnote [4]

[14] See Footnote [4]

[15] UN COPUOS. Report of the Legal Subcommittee on its forty-sixth session, held in Vienna from 26 March to 5 April 2007, 2007. URL https://undocs.org/A/AC.105/891

[16] Simonetta Di Pippo. Registration of Space Objects with the Secretary-General. In IISL-ECSL Symposium “40 years of entry into force of the Registration Convention — Today’s practical issues” 55th Legal Subcommittee, number April, 2016.

[17] Dominguez M., Faga, M., Fountain, J., Kennedy, P., O’Keefe, S., “Space Traffic Management: Assessment of the Feasibility, Expected Effectiveness, and Funding Implications of a Transfer of Space Traffic Management Functions”. National Academy of Public Administration (Aug 2020)

[18] “Space Debris By The Numbers”. European Space Agency. Retrieved 2021–03–15

[19] Jah, M. “Don’t want to share your satellite details? That should cost you”. Aerospace America (2020). Retrieved 2020–12–05

[20] “United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs Annual Report 2018”. UNOOSA Technical report, United Nations, Vienna. Retrieved 2020–12–05

[21] “United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs Annual Report 2019”. UNOOSA Technicalreport, United Nations, Vienna. Retrieved 2021–03–15

… originally published