Space Traffic Management Seen Needing Better Data Sharing, Someone in Charge

SSA and STM issues are increasingly coming to a head because of growing congestion in space, said Air Force Col. John Giles, National Space Council senior policy adviser. He said the council presented a policy recommendation to the White House for approval, though President Donald Trump hasn't signed it. He expects it will be approved, yet it "doesn't solve all the problems" for STM, instead laying a policy foundation.

The House-passed American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act (HR 2809) would ease regulatory barriers to commercial space operators but says little about space traffic management, said Pasco, also a Hudson Institute fellow. He said thought should be given to beefing up the STM and SSA authority of the executive branch, and it's important "for someone to be formally in charge" of orbital conflicts.

Mike Mineiro, senior counsel to the House Space Subcommittee, said it's gathering recommendations at the direction of Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, on policy ideas for tackling STM issues. Mineiro said Smith's intent is to introduce something this Congress.

Heads butted over how a U.S. STM regulatory regime might fit into an international framework. Theresa Hitchens, senior research associate at University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies, said development of both must be done simultaneously. She also said there could be international resentment to the U.S. "coming in and waving the big stick and telling them what to do." Embry-Riddle assistant professor of commercial Space operations Diane Howard said 21 voluntary guidelines that have come out of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space could be a good route to creating a rules framework, with the U.S. incorporating those guidelines into legislation that then could be an example to other countries.

Pasco said while 87 countries agreed to the guidelines, few are actually active in space. He said the U.S. should talk with other countries, but it should decide a best route in consultation and coordination with other space-faring nations "with skin in the game" that are putting things in orbit.

Secure World Director-Program Planning Brian Weeden said a nation-first approach could lead to conflicting national regimes and the need to harmonize those. An international-first approach has drawbacks, too, he said: Most nations lack resources -- such as staffers -- and the U.S. has to think through issues like SSA and debris and create a national policy.

Asked about the idea of ITU becoming the forum for handling non-geostationary orbital conflict issues, Maryland's Hitchens said it's "fairly unwieldy" as an organization. There's also the question of whether ITU would want that duty, she said. Added Weeden, ITU can identify spectrum interference but can't do anything about it since it lacks enforcement powers, and that could be a problem in the physical interference realm equally. That no "one-stop shop" internationally deals with space activity is problematic, Hitchens said. She said such an international institution will be needed eventually, but the intergovernmental approach for now makes most sense.

Experts pushed the idea of a globally accessible pool of SSA information being fed by multiple streams of data. Not every object in orbit "is knowable" since there's not the technology or the ubiquitous sensors, monitoring and funding that would allow that, said Moriba Jah, director-Advanced Sciences and Technology Research in Astronautics program, at the University of Texas-Austin. Citing a UT website, which combines SSA data from four different sources and often finds notable discrepancies among the four, Jah said, "We shouldn't be afraid of the inconsistency," since using multiple data sources is the route to international collaboration and long-term sustainability in space.

The relationship between the Defense and Commerce departments, and availability of space situational awareness data from the federal government, needs to be hammered out, Hitchens said. More also should be paid to trackability of smallsats, given potential for thousands going into orbit within just a few years, she said. The current practices of tracking and dealing with them post launch mission "are not adequate to the job," with collisions likely, and Congress needs to proactively see what can be done before such incidents, she said. Jah said there's no standard definition for trackability, and from a technical perspective, it involves not just detecting an orbiting object, but also knowing what it is.

Commerce later this month is to submit to the Office of Management and Budget a legislative proposal for consolidating authorities for commercial space activities, said Pasco. NOAA has an August deadline for streamlining remote sensing rules in consultation with the FCC, DOD and the State Department, he said. Commerce, State and DOD in September are expected to send a legislative proposal to OMB for expanded licensing for commercial remote sensing activities, and that month, the FCC and Commerce are to provide the White House with recommendations on improving U.S. competitiveness through radio frequency policies, regulation and ITU activity, he said. The National Space Council is expected to recommend changes to U.S. export controls in November, and in February, the Department of Transportation is expected to streamline regulations for launch and re-entry, he said.