Dallas Campbell: Hello and welcome to In-Orbit, the podcast exploring how
technology from space is empowering a better world, brought to you by
the Satellite Applications Catapult.
I'm your host, Dallas Campbell and today we're going to be talking about
space debris and the challenges that it presents to the space sector.
Today, I'm joined by Gary Cannon, he's the space segment lead at the Satellite
Applications Catapult, we've got Pat Matthewson, head of business strategy
and analysis at Astroscale and Valentin Valhondo, Program Manager at ClearSpace.
Now, there are many layers to consider when talking about space debris, including
where it comes from, how it impacts future space missions and satellites, as well as
the novel, exciting cleanup technologies and the legal implications of it all.
Do we need regulations in place to ensure space debris doesn't affect our ability
to explore and use space in the future?
Hi everyone.
Well, welcome to the show.
Thanks very much for joining us.
We're all online today.
No one's in the studio, but thank you very much for being here.
I thought we'd just go around the room quickly, we can just
sort of introduce ourselves.
We've got Gary, first of all, tell us you're from the
Satellite Applications Catapult.
So just tell us a little bit about what you do here.
Gary Cannon: yeah, I'm the Space Segment lead at the Satellite applications
Catapult, which basically means I'm a satellite designer, through my experience.
So anything to do with space hardware that the catapult is looking at,
it generally comes across my desk.
Dallas Campbell: Great, well thank you very much indeed for being here.
Oh God, we've got so much good stuff to talk about.
Valentin, we've Valentin, you're from ClearSpace, but tell us a little bit
about what you do at ClearSpace and who ClearSpace are just for our listeners.
Valentin Valhondo: Thank you very much.
so yeah ClearSpace is an In-Orbit services company.
We were established in 2019 in Switzerland as a spinoff of a technical university
and since then, we've expanded in the UK and more internationally as
well and we are trying to tackle the problem of space debris and
creating the In-Orbit services market.
Personally, I'm a programme manager here, I'm leading the development
of the UK's first National Debris Removal Mission, so I do everything
related to designing the satellite, so things like Gary was mentioning,
coordinating the team, selecting the supply chain, but also trying to
resolve all the regulatory issues that go around these kinds of missions,
Dallas Campbell: My head just, I get a headache thinking about
regulatory surrounding this.
And from Astroscale, we've got Pat Thanks for being here.
maybe just as a reminder, you can tell us a little bit about what
Astroscale do and what you do there.
Pat Matthews: Sure, so Astroscale is a publicly listed,
In-Orbit servicing company.
We're the only private company to demonstrate on two occasions, a
successful, rendezvous proximity operations with a non cooperative object.
but what Astroscale was trying to usher in is a sustainable space
environment, a world in which we have services similar to which we have
in other industries like on the road or in shipping or other industries
we have terrestrially where we think about how are things reused, recycled?
Dallas Campbell: Yeah.
Pat Matthews: And kept sustainable.
Dallas Campbell: I've been really, I was a bit confused about this episode cause I'm
sure it's one of those subjects we talk a lot about, space debris and I realised
we actually hadn't done a full dedicated episode, but in my brain, I think we had.
So, I think this is a really good opportunity to start from real
basics about what space debris is and establish the problem, then we can
get into a little bit more detail.
Most people, I think, well, certainly anyone listening to this podcast
will be aware of this idea of space debris as something that is dangerous.
But let's start with the fact that space is really, really big, and satellites
are really, really small, and we're getting more and more satellites, how
bad is the problem of space debris?
And actually, well, let's define that term first, I suppose.
Let's start with real first steps.
Someone could just jump in.
Who'd like to have a go at talking about that?
What do we mean?
Yeah.
Gary Cannon: Okay.
So
what I determine as space debris is it's inactive or uncontrollable items
that occupy any region of space, but we're obviously more interested
in the local environment of earth.
Dallas Campbell: We're
Gary Cannon: these...
Dallas Campbell: And we're talking about human stuff.
We're talking about human made things.
rather than Artificial stuff.
Yeah,
Gary Cannon: So this stuff, these items generally have the potential
to crash into other items, be those other items inactive or active and
from those collisions, they can cause a cascade in which each collision,
creates more space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions.
So this was coined, this study was done by a chap called Donald Kessler out of
NASA in 1978 and this, idea of collisions, increasing the likelihood of more
collisions is called the Kessler Syndrome.
Pat Matthews: I think it's important, too, to ask yourselves, why does
this matter in the first instance?
So let's presume someone's listening to this podcast on their morning commute,
a few days from now or something like that and along space is woven into our
lives, whether we realise it or not.
So when they tapped into the two, that financial transaction was likely
timestamped and possibly secured by GPS.
The coffee in their cup that they're carrying along with them was grown
using satellite technology, whether or not they have an umbrella with
them that was informed by satellites, which generated that weather report.
So, when we're talking about space debris and the risks that it poses,
we're talking about the livelihoods of everyone listening to this podcast and
space debris, this is the kind of detritus of, our first steps into the cosmos.
This has been a project that's less than 80 years old or so.
But as that ramps up for a variety of reasons we can get into, those objects
are increasingly putting our livelihoods under threat and even something small,
we talk about space being really big, but even something small as a
bolt is moving 17, 000 miles an hour.
So something, I don't think anyone would like to be hit with that object
and we could imagine what would happen if it hits a satellite and similarly,
something the size of your fist or objects that we track at 10 centimeters
hit with extreme explosive force.
So even these small little pieces are of real concern.
Dallas Campbell: I mean, I asked the question at the beginning,
space is big because in 1957, after October 1957, there was one object,
a human made object in space.
So there was nothing for it to crash into And it wasn't very big, it was the
size of the beach ball and satellites are relatively small anyway, I mean,
you could say that they're the size of a car, how much stuff is up there, I
suppose is the question, how much stuff is up there that has the potential
to get a bump into other stuff.
Do we have some kind of figure.
Pat Matthews: Yeah, so there's about 10, 000 active satellites, there's
about 13, 000 total satellites, so that gives you about 3, 000 dead ones.
We track about 40, 000 objects over 10 centimeters.
There's about a million objects over a centimeter and there's about 130
million over a millimeter, and all of those matter for different reasons.
But space is big, but usable space is relatively small and very close
to Earth and when we're talking about this debris problem, we're
often talking about Low Earth Orbit.
So anything within say, under 2, 000 kilometers from the Earth's surface.
Dallas Campbell: Because often I see kind of graphics of this problem where
you'll see the earth and then just loads and loads of stuff around it
and I always think that's a bit of a cheat because the actual objects, the
size of the objects compared to the earth are completely off the scale.
You know, I'm just trying to get a sense of really how, bad is the situation?
How damaging is the situation?
Valentin Valhondo: I think an important aspect is, as Pat was mentioning,
is the usable space is not so much.
So especially even within LEO, we use very specific orbits.
We don't use any orbit within LEO.
So we like to use what we call polar orbits most of the times for Earth
observation satellites or something with the constellations, we use
like basically the whole sphere.
there are some specific orbits that are of concern.
We use the most and then we have most debris as well in there.
So those orbits are really the ones we should be caring about.
Dallas Campbell: So it's a little bit like road lanes up in space, and it's
not necessarily the verges and the fields to the side that's the problem, it's
the debris that's actually on the road
Valentin Valhondo: But as well, you can have debris coming from the side and
then hitting you on the main highway.
So all debris, especially coming from all directions is
actually quite important as well.
Gary Cannon: I like the idea of the road analogy there, because the biggest problem
really are the poles because all of those roads, or those orbits that the spacecraft
occupy, they all converge at the poles, They all cross over the poles, and that's
where they get closer together, so you get these major problems around the poles.
Pat Matthews: And if you're to continue the traffic analogy, just to take,
so if anyone listening to this call has ever, lives in a part of the
world where they can see the night sky, they've probably seen a little
trail of satellites in a chain, like a string of pearls moving across the sky.
And often that is a mega constellation, it might, most likely a Starlink, which
is the SpaceX Constellation and the SpaceX Constellation, which is in Low Earth
orbit, in the first six months of this year, had to dodge traffic 50, 000 times.
So it had to make maneuvers 50, 000 times as it was traversing over the night sky
to avoid objects they deemed were at risk.
So these, this risk of collision is very real for satellite owners and
operators and we can talk about also how this has affected things like
the International Space Station.
Dallas Campbell: Yeah.
Pat Matthews: But actively dodging debris, dodging traffic, as we're talking about.
It's a very normal practice now for those who own and operate satellites.
Dallas Campbell: That's really interesting.
I mean, how difficult is it if you're a satellite moving at 17, 000 miles an
hour, how difficult is it to kind of move?
How does that work?
You've got little thrusters that kind of whip, move you,
whoop, got to go over there.
Gary Cannon: That's right, the easiest thing to do is an altitude change.
but what that requires is you have to stop your operations.
So the satellite is In-Orbit and that, you know, if we use the
Starlink, story there, Starlink is providing communications, right?
So if it has to make a maneuver to avoid something, it's got to stop that service
whilst the spacecraft reorientates itself.
So the thruster is pointing in the right direction.
Once the thrust is pointing in the right direction, it can make a burn, change
its orbit, whether that's altitude or inclination and then it's got to
get back into that chain as well.
So that whole time, whilst it's making the maneuver means it's
not doing what it should be doing.
It's not under operational conditions.
Dallas Campbell: Oh, I see.
And just sort of just while we're on the subject of historical context,
I'm interested in, I mean, how have some major accidents happened?
Have satellites hit other satellites?
Have we had Kessler syndrome effects that have damaged satellites?
I mean, you've mentioned satellites moving around, but give us some
examples of things that have happened.
Gary Cannon: Okay.
So the first one that I know about was, back in 1985, where the Americans
actually started this, they launched an anti satellite weapon and destroyed one
of their satellites at 555 kilometers.
Dallas Campbell: Actually in space, they had a...
Gary Cannon: In space and they, the debris created from that was, they
modeled it and they expected it to last another five to 10 years.
So that was the first one but in a way, kind of low risk because that debris
eventually deorbited pretty quickly.
In 2007, China, launched an anti satellite missile, which destroyed one
of their satellites at 865 kilometers, but that debris created from that
collision or that destruction is expected to last for decades or centuries.
So that's a big problem and then the..
Dallas Campbell: Can I just pause one second there.
when you say China launched an Antisatellite missile, so you're
saying they, the missile was shot from the earth and hit a satellite.
Gary Cannon: Correct.
Dallas Campbell: And for what purpose?
Like what was the reason for doing this?
Or is it, am I asking a really stupid question here?
Gary Cannon: I'm pretty certain it was to demonstrate or to test their
anti satellite weaponry capabilities.
They wanted, they wanted to prove that they could do that.
Dallas Campbell: Do this right?
Okay.
Gary Cannon: Yeah.
Then the Russians did the same in 2021.
They launched a missile that hit one of their own satellites.
But again, this satellite was in low earth orbit and has, created a
huge debris cloud that spans between 300 and a thousand kilometers.
So there's a big problem with these, anti satellite tests.
But satellites hitting other satellites.
I seem to recall it's one of those anecdotal things.
There have been collisions, I'm sure Pat and Valentin know a bit more about
Dallas Campbell: that.
I mean, I've seen bits of satellite, that, even a fleck of paint
that would hit a satellite that would just behave like a bullet.
I mean, it's, really, really destructive.
Gary Cannon: Yeah, that's right.
Valentin Valhondo: I think one of the major collisions that happened, this
is the first one, was in 2009, between an Iridium satellite and a Cosmos, a
defunct satellite from Russia, where basically they collided, crossing
the poles, they were both in opposing orbits and then basically that created
a cascade of debris, that then, well, it flew across the orbit and then
they met again in the poles again.
So it created even more debris and I think the population of debris, just because
of that collision increased by 10 or 15%.
Dallas Campbell: Got it, the formula is the more stuff we put up there,
the more crowded it becomes, the more dangerous it becomes, the more risky
it becomes and actually, Pat, what you said at the beginning was really,
most of us just aren't quite aware of just how fundamental what we do
in Low Earth Orbit is to civilisation and I'm talking about, you know, Uber.
and Deliveroo would not function if it wasn't for satellites,
so this is a big problem.
Pat Matthews: And so many of the things that we take to be a part of our standard
of living, you know that the yields we get from our crops, the food delivered
just in time to our plates This is really absolutely critical and folks hear this
and think oh, no the astronauts and the astronauts are terrified of this.
Chris Hadfield, the famous Canadian Astronaut says the only thing he's
afraid of really is space debris, given its unpredictability and that ASAT
test, that anti satellite test that was mentioned, the Russian one, caused
the astronauts aboard the International Space Station to have to shelter inside
the modules or the return capsules that they'd come back to Earth in.
So this is very real, but it's real for us here on Earth as well.
Dallas Campbell: Thank you, that's a really good bit of context there.
So we know what we're talking about.
We understand that the severity of the situation, let me just ask you, I
mean, how do we, I mean, it's obviously tracking big bits of debris, I suppose
relatively easy, but how is that?
How are things like tracked?
And how do we track smaller bits?
You know, we talk about clouds of debris, is there a way we can
accurately track what's up there and, and make, predictions about,
things crashing into each other.
Gary Cannon: My knowledge of this is based around the systems that track
the debris and that started off with NORAD in North America, where they
have, optical cameras and radar, they started off tracking the larger bits.
Originally it was just rocket bodies, but then after Donald Kessler
started opening his mouth, they started tracking smaller and smaller,
exactly smaller and smaller bits.
so now as we know, the reason we're doing this, podcast, because it's
becoming more and more of a problem.
So there is more and more technology out there for tracking and even
making satellites more trackable.
So you're putting retro reflectors on them, for example.
Dallas Campbell: But also presumably, there must be kind of a better end of
life systems in place for satellites.
If you're going to put something up, there must be some kind of recycling
stamp that can put on it a way of sort of bringing it back again so things
don't just stay up there forever, particularly if they're not being used.
It seems crazy, do we have that?
I mean, does that exist?
Do we know what side of the road we drive on in space?
Pat Matthews: Absolutely.
I mean, this is the project that we're working on at Astroscale.
So we're trying to prepare and for a world in which satellites are all
deorbited effectively and safely.
So we encourage, as all satellites going up, to adopt a docking
interface, it's just a little plate.
We manufacture one, there's other ones out in the market that just
makes it much easier for a servicer like ours, a satellite like ours, to
come up and grab it and ClearSpace can talk about similar things.
There's small measures that you can take to grab us, make getting a satellite
that dies In-Orbit much, much easier.
Dallas Campbell: Okay, can you just expand on that technology?
So the idea is, okay, you've got a dead satellite.
You guys, your company sends something up with like an arm, a
robot arm that sort of grabs it.
because you kind of read about harpoon guns and nets and all kinds
of rather exotic things, but I suppose I want to know, do they exist yet?
I mean, are you guys actually bringing stuff down?
Where are we with all of this?
Pat Matthews: Yeah, so Astroscale has demonstrated in 2001 with our Elsa
D mission, we brought up a simulated piece of debris and let it go and
came up and rendezvoused with it.
The hard part about this is an object that's non cooperative, which we
said at the top, because we can't, it has no thrusters, it has no
control, and it might be tumbling.
So imagine a figure skater that's spinning.
Now you have to lean in and grab that figure skater, but you have to make
sure you do the inverse of its spin.
So you have to come up close, you have to autonomously figure out what that spin is
because the latency down to the earth, and you have to close that gap and match it.
So it's an extremely hard ballet that you have to figure out to make this happen and
that's where the really core, technology at the heart of our two companies is
this rendezvous proximity, capability.
Dallas Campbell: And Valentin, is this the kind of work that
you guys are doing as well?
Valentin Valhondo: Yeah, definitely.
So, one of the key aspects is to be able to get close to
the piece of debris safely.
That's the first aspect, so that's what they call Random One Proximity
Operations and those are the technologies that ClearSpace are developing as well.
We are currently demonstrating on ground that it can be done.
we have five new missions that are going ahead due to be launching the
next few years, but unfortunately, debris removal is not yet a reality.
It's something it's in the very early stages where we are launching the first
missions to try to demonstrate that it can be done and as you were mentioning
about having preferred satellites, that's, the standard we're going towards, but
unfortunately we have more than 3000 satellites already In-Orbit that are
not prepared, that may be tumbling.
So there is a whole different set of technologies that
are required to be able...
Dallas Campbell: Just when you said that, 3000 dead satellites, the scale
of work that you guys have just seems to be enormous and presumably every
different dead satellite is behaving in a completely different way and
will require some different type of technology or science or something
to bring it back or get rid of it.
Pat Matthews: So we have a mission right now that's flying at the moment with,
JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, which is the Address J mission, which is going
up to inspect a three ton rocket body.
So what we've done is we've sent a servicer out and done this ballet,
this dance around this three ton school bus sized object to understand
how is it, what condition is it in?
How is it rotating or tumbling?
And to check the points of interface for which our next mission will come
and grab this object and de orbit it.
So we've just been awarded that subsequent mission by JAXA, but characterising
the state that these objects are in and how you might tackle them is a
key problem, in terms of solving this.
Gary Cannon: But one of the really useful things, just to pick up on
what Pat was talking about there, there's a growing interest in what
we call space domain awareness.
Obviously, because it's space that gets shortened to SDA, the acronym, and the
photography, the imagery that Astroscale has produced of that rocket body has
been invaluable in characterising the state of debris in the orbit where that
rocket body is, because they're able to, as they've taken the pictures and being
those pictures back to earth, various parties and organisations can look at
that rocket body and see the pit marks or the damage to that rocket body and we can
start to understand more about the extent of the debris situation in that rocket
bodies orbit, it's very useful stuff.
Dallas Campbell: Just while we're on the subject of acronyms, RPOs,
Remote Proximity Operations.
What do we mean by that?
Pat Matthews: Rendezvous Proximity Operations.
So that's the coming close to something and so it's a combination of three
things, kind of your maneuverability, your autonomy, and your dexterity.
So it's like thrusters, computer vision, and robotics.
How do you come together to grab something that's uncooperative in space?
And those are, that's the core IP at the heart of these endeavours.
Gary Cannon: And that's a new acronym, really, this whole RPO side of things,
because since Sputnik, we've desperately tried to keep spacecraft as far apart
as possible, because of this concern around, space debris and collisions.
Whereas now, Clear Space and Astroscale, they're actively trying to bring
spacecraft together, which is unheard of.
So that's why it's got its own kind of field of study,
Dallas Campbell: Yeah.
you know, when you read about space debris, I was just, there are these
kinds of what seemed to be very exotic technologies and I mentioned,
at the beginning, you know, this idea of harpoons and giant nets is
that an actual thing that you guys are working on or did I dream it?
Valentin Valhondo: So there's been a UK mission in the past to try
to demonstrate those technologies.
So they actually launched a space harpoon that, was, used to target
like a small demonstrator of debris.
But I don't think no one is looking into those technologies nowadays as a feasible
solution for the problem space debris.
There are other solutions, for example, at ClearSpace we're developing this kind
of space claw, which is, four big robotic arms that basically come and grab the
object and create like an envelope so it cannot escape once you capture it,
because it's very difficult, as we were saying, to know the state of the debris
once it's been in space for maybe 20 30 years, so we need to find ways to approach
it safely and also to capture it and once we capture it, not let it escape or break
or disintegrate or create more debris.
So, yeah, we are developing those kinds of technologies, but there are many more
like robotic arms, or even like docking plate specific, adapters, for example.
Dallas Campbell: Yeah.
So there's all this kind of technology, but in terms of the very, I mean, I
can understand how that would work, with big objects, but in terms of
these tiny objects, bolts, flecks of paint, are there any technologies
that are going to help sort that out?
Pat Matthews: So there are proposed technologies.
So with the very small stuff, folks have talked about laser ablation technology,
that has all sorts of problems.
Do you want to put a laser In-Orbit?
Do you want to be the country that's actively licensing the satellite
that's firing lasers In-Orbit?
I think that is fairly far down the road.
The theory of the case that Astroscale's pursuing, that ClearSpace is pursuing
and not to put words in your mouth, Valentin, but I suspect a similar is
if we can get the big objects before they become small objects, we can
arrest on this problem more upstream.
So that's what we're focusing on now.
Dallas Campbell: And I suppose we're talking about this problem,
we're addressing this problem now, because obviously it's going to get
worse and worse in the future as we put more and more stuff In-Orbit.
I'm just trying to get a sense for listeners, like, how bad is it now?
is it sort of, This is catastrophic.
or are we saying it's going to get really bad in the future, we need to stop it now.
I'm just trying to get some kind of sense of that.
Gary Cannon: I've read reports that say that, certain orbits, in low
Earth orbit are already unstable.
so, this is like beyond the point of no return.
yeah, it's already pretty bad, but other orbits like, MEO, Middle
Earth Orbit for our GNSS satellites, GPS satellites, that's okay.
Geostationary is a highly regulated, environment, so that's kind of
okay as well, but I'll defer to, Valentin and Pat, they might have
some more up to date information.
Valentin Valhondo: I like the data that Pat shared before about Starlink.
In the last six months, they've had to do 50,000 collision avoidance maneuvers,
so that means debris came close to one of their satellites 50,000 times
and they had to maneuver 50,000 times.
So what that means is they basically have to spend fuel to move away,
that has cost, that basically reduces the lifetime of that satellite.
So therefore it's reducing its lifetime and therefore they will become debris
faster unless they get out of the orbit.
but all of these, we're only talking about the pieces that are trackable,
which are bigger than 10 centimeters.
If you think of it like between one centimeter and 10 centimeter is a very big
piece of debris, but you cannot track it.
So a collision of an object, which is five centimeters big, it's basically
if it hits in the wrong place in your propulsion tank, it may just basically
blow your satellite, make it explode and we're talking about looking into
the numbers, more than 1 million of those objects for which we cannot
do anything, we can just basically pray they don't come across path.
Gary Cannon: That's a good point just to bring it back to is
it
Gary Cannon: as we say, you know, and obviously it is bad, we need
to be doing something about it.
But on the other side of this discussion is the fact our ability to
track the debris is getting better.
So all of the optical cameras and the radars, and even our modeling, the way we
model the orbits, that's getting better.
previously, if, two spacecraft were deemed to come within two kilometers of
each other, there would be what we call a Conjunction Avoidance Maneuver, where
the spacecraft have to steer out the way.
Whereas now, because those cameras and those tracking technologies and the
orbital modeling techniques, because they're getting better, we can now come,
a lot closer before we have to do a check.
So it's kind of like the smart motorways going back to our earlier analogy.
Dallas Campbell: Really good analogy.
Yeah.
Gary Cannon: spacecraft into that orbit.
Dallas Campbell: Smart motor, that's a really interesting analogy in a way.
It's a little bit like, I always think of it as a bit like an arms race.
It's a bit like climate change.
It's like, well, climate change is getting worse, but then we're then developing
technology that can certainly attempt to mitigate the worst bits of climate change,
but then it gets worse and so you get this arms race between the problem and
the technology to deal with the problem.
The secret it seems to be is to just stop the problem or like
try and just make it better.
So why don't we start talking about kind of regulation and rules of the
road and where we are with that?
Am I right in thinking we still have, well, we have the outer space treaty,
which I guess was modeled on something a little bit like the Antarctic
treaty of the 1940s and 1950s, which says, this area is for the benefit of
everyone, and we have to look after it.
Maybe you could sort of give us a bit of a rundown about where we are in
terms of treaties and what people are allowed to put up in space and do in
space and what rules are in place,
Gary Cannon: That's a big one.
Valentin Valhondo: Yeah.
Gary Cannon: There's so, yeah, the Outer Space Treaty is the
first set of legislation that came around that got, ratification.
I forget what the numbers are, but it wasn't ratified by everybody.
Most countries signed up to the Outer Space Treaty.
So that's a good start.
Getting any changes to that requires all of those countries to agree on
those changes and of course, as their technology and understanding of some of
those other, let's say, smaller nations, as their knowledge has increased, they
become more aware of the ramifications of changes to the Outer Space Treaty.
In the meantime, the UK, at least, has created the Space Industries
Act 2017, 2018, one of the two.
This talks about how we regulate activities in space and then we've
got the Space Regulations Act as well.
So those two pieces of legislation go some way to defining how we should
behave in space and to implement that, to monitor it, the CAA, the
Civil Aviation Authority have been tasked with regulating space flight
from the UK, so that those activities are in line with the Space Industries
Act and the Space Regulations Act.
Dallas Campbell: So we have regulation, but again, it seems to me a little
bit like climate change in that space, you know, orbits transcend national
boundaries like climate change does.
So unless you have everyone signing up to it, then it's kind of pointless.
It's no good just having Britain.
Well, there is a point of just having Britain having rules and regulations
about things like climate change because hopefully it spreads and people get
the idea, but there is no, as far as I am aware, there's no kind of universal
agreement yet, on space regulation.
Pat Matthews: No, but there's a, there's steps in the right direction.
It's similar to climate change where we have the majority of carbon emissions
coming from just a few actors.
In space, we have the majority of debris coming from just a few actors.
The majors, the major space fair.
So when they take leadership in this, we see real change.
We're seeing this really grow amongst policymakers.
So the United States, the FCC has just changed to a five
year de orbit regulation.
So any satellite that's launched at the end of its life should
de orbit within five years.
We saw the first fine for failing to move a satellite into a graveyard orbit in Geo.
So there's some really forward thinking happening on this and they're starting
to become traction, but you're absolutely right, there's still a core problem
here of alignment, can someone who wants to launch a satellite irresponsibly
defect to the easiest, most permissive, regulatory regime that'll have them?
That's a real issue.
and how we think about this, but also there's a huge education piece, you
know, the number of, governments move when people demand it, when citizens
understand how space is in their lives, when people that work in the space
industry demand it of their companies, demand it of their customers, all
these things are an enormous education piece that has to keep happening.
Dallas Campbell: So that education thing, a little again, sorry to say,
use the same analogy, a bit like climate change, once the public are aware of
things like climate change and make and want change and demand change for
all kinds of reasons, then regulatory bodies and governments will follow,
will pick up on that and go, okay,
Gary Cannon: they're gonna pick up their pace on this, I think, but
as Pat's saying, there's lots of organisations out there already that
are actively trying to mitigate this issue before it becomes a PR issue,
Dallas Campbell: Yeah, and what's the kind of ultimate goal of regulation?
Is it to have a kind of universal set of rules, that every nation that put,
or not just nation, every company that puts stuff into space will follow,
that's really clear and less disparate.
Pat Matthews: So I think, you know, if you were to ask, a regulator In
the US, UK, France, or even Russia or China, you know, how they think
about this, is they would probably say the optimal amount of regulation is
one in which we can continue to use space for our benefit in perpetuity.
That is, I think, the long run place where a well intending actor arrives after this,
and we're not on that path right now.
if we want space to be the inheritance of future generations, if we want all the
things that, you know, I suspect everyone on this call was a, sci fi reader growing
up or something like that, if we want that future, that's a long term game
that governments have to engage in to think about, how do we conduct activity
in such a way that it's available to those who build things in the future?
and that's the end goal.
Dallas Campbell: Yeah.
I mean, I mentioned the Antarctic treaty as a comparison.
I do think we need to look at Low Earth Orbit, a bit like a separate continent, if
you like, like a separate, a physical area like Antarctica and I think public don't
really see it like that yet, which goes back to your points about education, Pat.
Pat Matthews: And this is hard.
I mean, I think I'm surrounded by a few PhDs on this call, but the
outer space law in itself and just even the subspecialty here, is a
career and a lifetime into itself.
So this is, you know, extremely complex, interwoven stuff and it will take
time to distill that and communicate that effectively to policymakers.
Gary Cannon: Although the idea of space as another nation, I think all four of
us here would definitely become a citizen of that nation and I suspect you would
get quite a few other people as well.
we could reach critical mass pretty quickly, I'd say.
Dallas Campbell: So interesting.
I'm just trying to get a sense of how Wild West it is at the moment and, that's
the thing, when aviation was invented in the, took off in the 1930s, we were
very quick to sort of regulate it and have rules that all nations followed
and, it seems that our activities in space are much more complicated
than that for all kinds of reasons.
Gary Cannon: That term has been widely used in the space industry, the Wild West.
and, I think what the Civil Aviation Authority, who take their mandate
from DSIT, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, they're
doing a really good thing, by saying you've got to de orbit within X years.
You've got to have better trackability of your spacecraft.
We're moving in the right direction from a regulation side of things.
If you can make your spacecraft more trackable, it's going to be safer.
So absolutely, as Pat says, if every nation came together
and says, your spacecraft must be trackable, they've got to de orbit
within X years, that'd be great.
Dallas Campbell: Well, we know just by watching the news.
We know that that's what nations do, they just always just come together
and work together in harmony and peace.
Gary Cannon: Yeah, yeah.
Dallas Campbell: That's just the natural order of things.
Valentin Valhondo: A nice piece of news is now the European Space Agency is
pushing to get the net zero charter or the zero debris charter, which basically is
inviting anyone who wants to join there.
It's expanding it to the whole of the space industry in Europe.
But also abroad and also governments, to sign it and basically it's
pledged to commit to doing space, using space in a sustainable way.
For example, ClearSpace and Astroscale have signed that in 2024, the UK
government has signed it as well and by working with the UK space agency,
they are telling us that it will likely flow down into all of the license
applications that will go through the UK.
So we can see within the US, European Union, the more advanced space players,
they are really pushing towards space sustainability and creating,
an environment that will outlive us
Dallas Campbell: basically.
OK, let's think about the future, so we've got stuff in space, we've got more stuff
gonna be in space which is going to create more problems, but we're going to get
better technology, which you guys are on.
We're going to create better regulatory frameworks and better legal systems in
place that hopefully are going to help.
Give us some ideas if we sort of leap 10 years into the future,
what's the world of Low Earth Orbit and satellites going to be like?
Pat Matthews: I think let's look at an industry here on earth or how
did all the ancillary activities around having a car evolve?
And it's some function of the number of cars on the road.
So gas stations and tow trucks didn't evolve when the first car was
driven, but it evolved when there was kind of a critical mass of cars
to make those services worthwhile.
I think as you see the volume of satellites increase, the amount of
mass, you'll see those services, which Astroscale is very passionate
about bringing into being.
I think some of the more interesting things that might happen as well
is this RPO technology we talked about, getting rid of debris
is just the beginning of this.
If you can grab and manipulate objects In-Orbit, you can do all sorts of
fascinating things, you can overcome, you know, so called Tyranny of the Fairing.
So we all remember the James Webb Space Telescope that had
to be folded like origami to fit inside the fairing of a rocket.
Imagine you could break that into a lot of different pieces and then assemble it
In-Orbit and have a much bigger telescope, or say you wanted to assemble space
stations or space based solar power, you could build big objects with all sorts
of capabilities using these technologies.
Dallas Campbell: This is it, so In-Orbit manufacturing, which we've talked about on
this podcast, actually the technology that you guys are developing in order to make
space a safer place can also be extended into things like In-Orbit manufacturing
and building bigger things in space.
Valentin Valhondo: 100%.
Gary Cannon: There's even talk of recycling in space, like taking some
of those dead satellites and using some of those viable materials rather
than burning them up in the atmosphere.
Can we extract that gold or the aluminum and use it again?
If we can enable this remote proximity operations capability,
then we can service spacecraft.
So before they die, we can bring them, we can extend their life.
There are companies in the UK and around the world looking at refueling.
So when a spacecraft runs out of fuel, we can fill it back up and it can carry on.
But also there's talk of reconfigurable spacecraft.
So can you change the mission of the spacecraft without having to
deorbit and launch a new spacecraft?
Can we do something with the existing spacecraft to make it do something
else that's potentially more useful?
So all of these longer lives and different capabilities, that's a
way of extending the life of that could potentially become junk.
Pat Matthews: I absolutely agree.
It's all about a circular economy.
the most sustainable satellite is the one that's already in space.
So how do we continue to use assets that are already up there and extend
their lives and their usefulness?
Dallas Campbell: That makes a lot of sense.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for being part of this discussion.
Absolutely fascinating.
I hope we sort of covered everything from first steps to the future.
Gary, Pat, Valentin, a huge thanks.
Pat Matthews: Thanks so much.
Gary Cannon: Thank you very much.
Valentin Valhondo: Thank you to you!
Dallas Campbell: To hear future episodes of In-Orbit, be sure to
subscribe on your favorite podcast app and to find out a little bit
more about how space is empowering industries in between episodes, Thanks.
You can visit the Catapult website or join them on social media.