World Space Week 2022: Anti-Satellite Weapons are Anti-Sustainability

This year's theme for World Space Week is sustainability. Making space greener is massively important to our world, nation and region. We attended Space Comm 2022 last month and one of the hotly debated topics was Space Sustainability. It's incredibly important to have discussions about how the sector can be more sustainable at a time when it is growing at such a rapid rate. With a new space age on the horizon, what are leading space businesses doing to help improve sustainability in space?

Anti-Satellite missile being launched into the atmosphere.

ASAT or Anti-Satellite Weapons are space weapons designed to destroy or damage a satellite beyond repair. No ASAT system has been used in warfare, as yet but countries such as Russia, China and the USA have used them to shoot down their own decommissioned assets in a show of force. This “testing” creates significant space debris to form, accelerating the Kessler effect. Since debris at high altitudes can stay in orbit for decades or longer, it accumulates as more is produced, risking further collisions.

Countries like the USA state that they only use ASAT to bring down potentially dangerous satellites. For example, the satellite USA-193 was launched in 2006 before a malfunction caused it to enter into a rapidly decaying orbit. The amount of fuel USA-193 was carrying posed a risk to people near the inevitable crash site and within two years, the US government shot down the satellite. Following more recent ASAT tests by Russia, the US has stated that they will stop ASAT testing.

However, ASAT is much more of a hindrance than a help, adding to the more than 8000 tonnes of space debris currently in orbit. The fragments created from ASAT testing are now orbiting the earth at high speed with debris travelling 30 times faster than an aircraft. These space projectiles can cause severe damage and even destroy satellites. With many satellites performing essential services on earth, ASAT-linked debris could knock out critical national infrastructure.

Agreed space behaviour and operations have never been so important. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the multilateral treaty that forms the basis of all space laws, doesn’t have much influence on modern space capabilities. Space-related technologies are growing at such a rapid rate that policy can not keep up. The current lack of modern space guidelines greatly improved innovation, but now laws are needed that encourage growth and stop malpractice.