Space Traffic Management

RELATED NEWS: SWF Washington Office Director Victoria Samson and Samuel Black of The Stimson Center have co-authored a brief analysis of national security space programs proposed in the FY 2011 defense budget. Download the document here.

The Problem

“Imagine that you are in a car driving around any major city in the world. You have a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit installed in your dash and it tells you exactly where you are and where the roads are. This is a very good thing because all the windows on your car are blacked out and you cannot see anything except what the GPS unit tells you. Even if you could see outside, the roads lack signal lights, traffic signs and lanes. Driving around the same city are 100 other cars, all with GPS units and their windows blacked out. To complicate the matter further, there are also 1,000 unmanned cars driving around on autopilot.

Given this situation, would you feel safe knowing that the chances of colliding with another car are one in a million? If the answer is yes, at what probability would you start to be concerned? What if the scenario described above also lacked a legal system to decide who was at fault for a collision and lacked a court in which you could seek restitution if you were injured?”

This analogy, used to kick off the analysis of space traffic management (STM) in the International Space University’s (ISU) 2007 report, Space Traffic Management, describes the general problem well. But what does STM really mean? What might the end result look like? These are the questions the Secure World Foundation aims to answer with the help of its partners.

Generally speaking, STM is expected to be a combination of rules and technologies that will help operators in space maximize the use and the continued availability of orbital resources. These rules and technologies should minimize the risk of unintentional physical or radio-frequency interference to operational spacecraft. The primary objective is to ensure safe, efficient and sustainable operations in space, and safety of launch and satellite end of life. Secondary objectives include alerting space operators of potential natural and artificial physical hazards, space weather conditions and navigation information.

To use another metaphor, STM is not unlike air traffic control in terms of responsibilities. For example, in order for pilots to do their jobs, they need to know more about the environment than who is flying around in it. For example, pilots need to know about the terrain, so they can use electronic or visual navigation cues and avoid running into mountains and buildings. Further, pilots need to know the weather and atmospheric conditions, like air pressure, in order to operate the aircraft safely. In a sense, orbital debris, space weather, gravity, and near Earth objects all represent the terrain and environmental conditions of space and operators need to know what those conditions are to operate safely.

Secure World Foundation and space traffic management

Building upon previous work, such as the 2006 International Academy of Astronautics COSMIC Study on Space Traffic Management, and the 2007 ISU report, as well as other recent research, Secure World Foundation staff and contractors are conducting research on the technical, policy and legal aspects of space traffic management. Foundation staff have also been organizing workshops and attending conferences focused on space traffic management issues.

Be sure to visit the links above to learn more about STM in International Space Policy Documents, Reports, Fact Sheets, Links, and Papers and Articles.