Viasat, Inmarsat urge regulators in Asia & Europe to deny acccess to constellations that don’t follow orbital best practices
LA PLATA, Maryland – Space agencies and national telecom regulators rarely speak to each other, which is one reason why progress is so slow in creating space sustainability standards in low Earth orbit.
The long-term work of setting best-practice rules and promoting satellite-identification and debris-mitigation standards needs to continue, and many space agencies are at work on this.
But it’s the telecom regulators, who decide whether a satellite network is allowed access to their markets, that have the most immediate impact on fleet operators’ behavior.
In recent months, the chief executives of Inmarsat and Viasat have begun to make the case that telecom regulators should add space sustainability metrics to their mandates in addition to radio frequency coordination. Both have inserted the issue into venues where unpleasant topics like this are usually left outside the room.
Viasat Chief Executive Mark D. Dankberg, accepting a lifetime achievement award at the APSCC 2022 conference, held Oct. 18-20 in Seoul, departed from the usual fond-memories script to put the issue before an Asia-Pacific audience.
“Most of the interest in space right now is in low Earth orbit, which is bounded. It’s a finite space,” Dankberg said. “How much is too much? What does that mean in terms of anti-collision or the risks of reentry of enormous amounts of mass into the atmosphere?”
Viasat is preparing to expand its market with three large broadband satellites in geostationary orbit covering the glob with the exception of the poles. The company is talking to more national telecom regulators than ever to secure access for these satellites.
“One of the things we have taken from discussions with telecom regulators around the world is that they are not used to the discussion that space is a scarce resource,” Dankberg said. “They actually don’t like it, because it puts a burden on them in terms of what they are allowed to do or should do from a regulatory perspective.”
Dankberg suggested that the approach to telecom regulators also play the national-sovereignty card, arguing that all nations should worry if one nation or company effectively fills up a given orbit to the point where others cannot use it.
Dankberg urged Asia’s space industrial base to talk to their own national space agencies and telecom regulators and get the two of them to understand what the implications are in terms of filling up space.
“It will be kind of sad if it turns out that the space race really is about who can put the most mass into space the fastest. These are the kinds of things we will be working on and we look forward to working with many of you.”
Inmarsat Chief Executive Rajeev Suri, whose company has agreed to be purchased by Viasat pending regulatory approval, has come to the same conclusion on the need to bring telecom regulators into the discussion.
In an Oct. 25 address to the European Space Forum 2022, held in Brussels, Suri was speaking both as Inmarsat CEO and as president of the Global Satellite Operators Assn. (GSOA), an organization of 29 companies that issued a position paper on orbital best practices.
Suri showed three simulations of the satellite environment in Earth orbit in 2001, 2022 and in a decade based on satellite network registrations at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The data is only of active spacecraft. It does not include the growing population of space debris.
“Without near-term harmonized agreement we could get to the point where orbital debris renders some parts of space unusable. We cannot let this happen on our watch,” Suri said. “Action is required now, not in 10 years, not in five years, when it will start to be too late.”
That’s why the telecom regulators’ involvement is necessary. It’s a lever that can be used by any nation with nearly immediate effect, unlike the years it will take to form an international consensus on orbital best practices. Suri noted that Inmarsat too has a LEO constellation in the planning stages.
“Let’s work with the ITU and expand their mandate to go beyond frequency and spectrum coordination to have an activity and a budget around space sustainability,” Suri said.
“The most important in the short and medium term is working with local regulators so that when they give market access, they demand space debris plans and anti-collision avoidance, debris removal, space situational awareness plans.
“If you are not convinced, then don’t provide that market access,” Suri said.
This article was originally published by SpaceIntelReport at www.spaceintelreport.com/viasat-inmarsat-urge-regulators-in-asia-europe-to-deny-access-to-constellations-that-dont-follow-orbital-best-practices/.