The Fastest Approach to Address Orbital Debris

And drive stronger market demand

Last fall, I wrote that orbital debris is a growing problem that cannot be ignored any longer. In the short three months since then, an anti-satellite test was conducted by Russia, the International Space Station either maneuvered or sheltered its crew at least three times, we learned the breakup of a Chinese satellite was caused by a small piece of debris from a 1996 Russian launch vehicle, and the estimate of untracked orbital debris > 10 cm in diameter (e.g. items bigger than half the size of a bowling ball) increased by over 400%. At Prime Movers Lab, we have a deep interest in creating a sustainable space environment for the healthy and prosperous growth of the space economy and infrastructure that we all depend on. To understand the orbital debris problem better and what we can do about it, we have spent time speaking with numerous companies developing orbital debris-related technologies and services as well as space environmental, insurance, policy, and law experts (e.g. see our webinar recap).

Making the clean-up a priority has been difficult …

The international community has been talking about orbital debris policy since before the 1990s. Back then, the focus was mostly on mitigation (i.e. how to prevent it). In 1990, the U.S. Congress during the George H. W. Bush administration conducted a study about the causes and distribution of orbiting debris and examined research and development (R&D) activities for minimizing it. In 1994, the United Nations implemented the first space debris mitigation guidelines. As the orbital debris population was expected to triple by 2010, President Barack Obama's administration addressed remediation (i.e. removing the debris) in the National Space Policy. As orbital debris management was not core to the Department of Defense (DOD) or NASA missions (and subsequently having no Congressionally allocated budget), progress has been slow. Almost a decade later, the Trump administration issued Space Policy Directive-3 and then updated the National Space Policy. The emphasis on mitigation continued, but any references to removing debris have been … well, removed. To this day, no responsibility for remediation has been assigned by Congress, ideally to the Department of Commerce (DOC). (Even Space Force promotes commercial industry participation in order to avoid concerns that remediation technology would be used as a weapon.)

…until now.

However, there is hope! Early in 2021, President Donald Trump’s administration released the National Orbital Debris R&D Plan. The comprehensive plan is broken into three elements:

1. Limited Debris Generation by Design
2. Track and Characterize Debris
3. Remediate or Repurpose Debris

(Given that the National Space Policy does not mention remediation, I was glad to see this third element included!) Specific priorities range from reducing debris during launch, spacecraft designs that reduce on-orbit debris production (e.g. paint peeling in the vacuum environment) or limit fragmentation if hit, improving maneuverability to avoid collisions, reducing debris tracking uncertainties, developing remediation tech to target different sizes of debris (e.g. the large defunct satellites vs paint chips) and developing models for remediation risk and cost-benefit analyses.

Recently, the Biden administration solicited comments on the plan both written and via two listening sessions: one on remediation and another on mitigation. Of course, entrepreneurs advocated for their tech, such as on-orbit servicing, better on-orbit maneuverability, in-orbit recycling, and spacecraft manufacturing. Space environmentalists, economists, policy and law experts weighed in. In-space service providers and even private citizens who would benefit from a cleaner and safer environment also participated. A diverse range of opinions and ideas were shared, demonstrating the complexity of the problem — and the magnitude of the opportunity! There are a plethora of new entrepreneurs, spawned from the recent massive injection of liquidity into “New Space” and drastic decreases in launch costs. Coupled with government partners and investors, we just may be able to start cleaning up our mess.

Just do it.

We advocate two top priorities within the R&D plan:

(a) funding an initial set of remediation demonstrations to establish the first wave of services while immediately removing threats; and

(b) performing studies to inform commercial-friendly regulations or collective solutions that will create a market for orbital debris risk management (using any method) while informing investors (who may partner with government) to accelerate deployment.

Orbital debris removal demonstrations. Orbital debris will never cease to exist, even with the most well-intentioned designs, and the problem exists now. We have sufficient tracking capability to start remediation and known targets that, if removed, immediately lower the risk. Our recommendation is to fund demonstrations, much like the European Space Agency (ESA) and the United Kingdom are already doing. In addition, U.S. orbital debris remediation capability protects us against other countries failing to fully enforce mitigation standards and large debris-creating events.

Data to drive commercial-friendly incentives. We think the other priority should be funding studies to inform smart, agile regulations or collective solutions (agreements between users in the use and sustainable management of space) to enable a sustainable market for these remediation services. The intent should be that as remediation technologies are demonstrated, any requirements put in place help to close business cases. Doing this in parallel ensures that services exist in time to help entities comply. And only then will meaningful clean-up start to happen.

I’ll emphasize again that incentives need to be commercial-friendly. We don’t want to overregulate, but it is naïve to rely only on self-regulation. Studies should explore how to make compliance easy and fast, as well as seek international agreement to eliminate unfair competition.

Building out the customer database. We also advocate for another top priority under the “Track and characterize debris” element: determining and publishing ownership of orbital debris. This will provide a resource of potential customers for orbital debris removal services who otherwise could not approach the debris in the first place. Initially, governments may negotiate removal of high risk items. Customers may choose to remove their debris to protect trade secrets. Others may be compelled to act responsibly for publicity. The mere fact that ownership is being determined and published may influence operators to be proactive in adopting orbital debris-minimizing tech and better end-of-life mission plans. More likely, when regulations or collective solutions are eventually designed to hold entities accountable, all owners will be required to seek some form of orbital debris risk management or remediation services.

In the long term, the continued identification of owners will feed the market with customers. Developing that database will require continued development of models to discover debris origin as the “easy” pieces are IDed while less characterized and/or smaller pieces require more complex simulation and tracking.

Mitigation through design. We have talked with many companies already successfully pursuing technology that limits debris generation by design. For investment firms, the bottleneck to making a dent in addressing the orbital debris problem is not necessarily funding to create the technology but the market demand to successfully deploy it. So though we do not advocate novel design approaches as a top priority, we do appreciate R&D funding serves as a source of non-dilutive funding for operators developing any space system (lowering their financial risk), while incentivizing environmentally-responsible designs that protect the infrastructure.

In the long term, “limit by design” will start to have meaningful impacts. Industry will be completing design cycles and flight qualification, and we will start to see deployments of sustainable designs. Specific areas include improving resilience of spacecraft surfaces, shielding and impact resistance, and fragment-reducing technology. Though orbital debris will not be eliminated, we will have tools to make our critical in-space infrastructure more robust to debris as well as less likely to create debris in the first place. With regulation or collective agreements in place to hold ourselves accountable, these design solutions will be sought after.

We caution designing regulations that stipulate design standards as they could unintentionally limit creativity of solutions or (worse) burden service providers. For example, the plan mentions “standards that would support active-mission collision avoidance and decision-making.” These design solutions could be relatively massive, power consuming, and/or not synergistic with a craft’s objectives limiting capability while increasing costs, etc. It is in an operator’s self-interest to protect themselves from collision. We caution using standards to force it in a way that stifles innovation or incentivizes industry to move abroad.

The Catalyst

We need a catalyst — other than a catastrophic event — to motivate a market that demands risk debris management. Funded missions and commercially-friendly incentives would make investors more confident in the business case of orbital debris-focused companies and funnel more dollars to them sooner, accelerating their ability to act. We recognize cleaning up orbital debris is needed now but we have a fiduciary responsibility to our investors — will funding these critical start-ups return funds timely enough?

We have seen a number of companies that can be ready to demonstrate services in the next 2–4 years. So for the near term, the fastest path to impacting the situation is actually removing debris. Not only do they remove debris, the removal of key targets can lower the risk of more creation. Regulations and/or collective agreements should be made by President Joe Biden’s administration to not lose momentum through an election cycle. The timing of orbital debris mitigation demonstration missions and updated commercial-friendly policy could be the catalyst we need.

Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.

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