Space capacity management and its interaction with space traffic management

Chapter 24 - Regulations for future space traffic control and management

Space Traffic Management (STM) is a new concept referring to space activities. The highest priority is the safety and security of outer space and all conducted operations. There is no definition of STM. There is an urgent need to regulate STM providing safety and security regulations at the international, regional, and national levels. Because there is no STM definition, the regulator might use the example of existing regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organization on Air Traffic Management (ATM). European EUSST is a good example of being a “precursor” of STM. However, many questions are still open regarding specific regulations needed to create an STM system, such as at which level they should be made: globally, regionally, or nationally.

Space is becoming increasingly congested as the number of on-orbit satellites and debris objects continues to grow. Space traffic management (STM) is critical for ensuring that the expanding orbital population operates safely and efficiently, avoiding collisions and radio-frequency interference while still facilitating widespread space operations. Recent events such as the FCC approval of SpaceX’s ~12,000 satellite constellation, the signing of Space Policy Directive 3 (which moves Space Situational Awareness responsibilities away from the Department of Defense and to a civil agency), and the growth in rideshare and small launch vehicles illustrate the rapidly changing nature of this domain. This paper will describe the concept of operations (ConOps) for a civilian STM research initiative, which has been developed from previous NASA work to enable safe operation of small unmanned aircraft systems. The STM ConOps proposes an architecture to enable efficient data sharing and coordination between participants to facilitate safe spaceflight operations. It is designed to utilize and promote the emerging field of commercial STM services, as a complement to existing government-provided STM services. The concept envisions a phased evolution that would gradually integrate additional capabilities, proposing a first phase architecture and tentative plans for a broader system. Work towards developing an STM research and prototyping platform is also discussed.

This chapter addresses European space policy perspectives on the establishment of Space Traffic Management from a discourse theory perspective. This includes the study of space and security/defence policies in Europe, taking into consideration the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Union (EU) and national strategies, programmes and governance. The space sector is undergoing transformation. A number of the ESA and EU Member States have developed a dedicated space and security/defence strategy. The chapter presents ESA, the EU and the selected European Member States’ activities with the largest space and security defence budget: France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. Space actors in Europe recognise that a Space Traffic Management regime is essential for the security and sustainability of European space activities. Accordingly, they have gradually developed several activities, strategies and policies, which among others set the basis for STM development and reflect the important role of STM in space and security.

This paper examines the legal basis and framework for the United Nations registration process for space objects. UN registration processes are compared against and contrasted with national and regional registration processes to highlight potential adjustments in light of the need for a space traffic management system. While there are shortfalls in compliance and monitoring of States’ responsibility to adhere to UN registration requirements, the growing importance of space traffic management is providing a catalyst for reform and recommitment to the ideals upon which the 1975 UN Registration Convention was based. Since the data provided to national registries and the UN register is not detailed enough and is not sufficient for creating a space traffic management regime, it is recommended that (1) the recommendations concerning the registration of space objects belonging to a large constellation that were agreed by the UNCOPUOS Working Group on the Status and Application of the Five United Nations Treaties on Outer Space in 2023 are implemented to ensure uniformity of registration practice regarding large constellations; (2) States incentivize good registration practices by other States, for instance by requiring that satellites of commercial actors are registered by the relevant launching State as a condition for market access; (3) the importance of furnishing additional information on the subsequent activity and status of objects, as required by the Registration Convention, UN General Assembly resolutions 1721 (XVI) B and 62/101 and Guideline A.5 para 2 of the UNCOPUOS Guidelines on the Long-Term Sustainability of Space Activities, be underlined.

This chapter examines what makes Space Situational Awareness (SSA) challenging from the standpoint of policy, finance, and international engagement, and how such challenges impede our ability to mitigate collision and RFI risks. It also examines why timely and substantive improvements are required across the SSA and Space Traffic Management (STM) enterprises to maximize the effectiveness of safety-of-flight procedures and analyses. SSA is critical but insufficient to solely support spaceflight safety. Effective legal and operational constructs are critically important, especially in missions that require the pooling or sharing of operational data. Accurate, comprehensive, and timely space situational awareness is foundational to space traffic management, yet few appreciate the many moving parts required to obtain such SSA. Investment in SSA and STM no longer has a direct relationship with SSA and STM capability. The chapter explains the standard conjunction assessment process and enumerated the commercial, national, and international entities who provide such services.

Proceedings of the International Institute of Space Law is een online tijdschriftenplatform van Boom uitgevers Den Haag (Boom juridisch, Boom criminologie, Boom bestuurskunde en Eleven International publishing)

For decades, the airspace volume above today’s commercial traffic at altitudes higher than 60,000 ft - referred to as Higher Airspace (HA) in Europe, Upper Class E in the U.S. or sometimes Near Space - had been largely reserved for specialized military operations, experimental flights, rare exploration missions, and only occasionally interrupted by rocket launches. However, advancements in aerospace technology, a growing demand for expanded air travel, novel airborne capabilities, and a surge of (commercial) rockets launched to sub-orbital and orbital destinations, let to identifying the need to develop concepts for a more closely interfacing and later-on integration between Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Space Traffic Management (STM). Reasons for this are manifold, but they all can be summed up to the fact that methods developed have been done so in different contexts and different times: Procedures to allow crossing of airspace to reach higher altitudes have long lead times that leave little flexibility to adjust launch times to weather conditions or other unforeseen events. Covering against risk from unscheduled failures often requires closing large regions of air space, which does not scale with the number of launches expected over the coming decades. Additionally, every-now-and-then occurring reentries of large objects together with the inherent uncertainties of their predictions lead to closures of airspace that are questionable when considering the probability of casualty causing events, yet understandable when looking at the risk of being responsible if something occurs, without clear procedures and risk description. As an example, the brief closure of Spanish airspace in November 2022 in reaction to a reentering Chinese launcher stage, lead to the delay of more than 300 commercial flights.

This paper analyses the effectiveness of the international legal framework in mitigating the combined risks of orbital collision and cyber interference, and assesses how a global Space Traffic Management (STM) regime could enhance stability and security in outer space. Using Yin’s single-case study design, the global space governance regime is examined through Bowen’s qualitative document analysis of treaties, policies, and twelve scholarly studies, interpreted via Dunn’s public-policy analysis framework. The findings show that existing instruments establish broad norms of responsibility and liability but lack operational authority, cyber-resilient procedures, and enforceable “rules of the road.” Fragmented institutions and divergent national strategies perpetuate legal ambiguity and impede coordinated manoeuvre decisions. Cyber dependencies in orbital systems further magnify risks of misinterpretation and escalation. The study argues that an integrated STM regime—combining binding collision-avoidance authority, mandatory cyber-security standards, and interoperable data architectures—would materially reduce uncertainty and strengthen collective security. Policy recommendations include establishing a supranational coordination centre, codifying minimum separation and priority rules, and linking participation to verifiable cyber compliance. The proposed framework operationalises due regard through authority, assurance, and accountability, transforming space governance from permissive norms to enforceable safety mechanisms. By fusing legal, institutional, and technological dimensions, the research provides a practical pathway toward a secure and predictable orbital environment.

Introduction: the increasing number of space objects in orbit and the absence of uniform international standards for space traffic management pose a threat to the safety of spaceflight and increase the risk of debris formation. In light of modern technical and economic developments, it is essential to develop a legal framework for the regulation of space traffic. Purpose: the article aims to analyze the legal aspects of international space traffic management, including relevant rules of current international space law; to identify key components of a potential legal regime; to assess current initiatives in this field and explore the prospects for their implementation based on ongoing discussions within the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Methods: the comparative legal method and legal doctrinal analysis were applied in this work, along with the study of international treaties, national legislation, doctrinal sources, and initiatives from international organizations. Results: the study has shown that current international space law lacks a comprehensive mechanism for managing space traffic. Two potential models for its development are considered in the article: a ‘bottom-up’ approach (harmonization of national regulations) and a ‘top-down’ approach (creation of a universal international agreement). The proposals of the International Academy of Astronautics and the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space were analyzed, including ideas related to enhancing situational awareness in space and utilizing the ICAO's experience in coordinating space flights. Conclusions: the development of an international legal framework for space traffic management necessitates the creation of unified international standards, including maneuvering rules, a data exchange system, and legal liability mechanisms. Further research should consider not only the interests of spacefaring nations but also those of developing states as well as technological developments intended to ensure the safety and sustainability of space activities.

First Draft of the IAA Study on Space Traffic Management

Collision probability calculation is critical to space situational awareness or space traffic management. To determine the collision probability, the conjunction time needs to be determined first, but both collision probability and conjunction time usually exist large uncertainties. In this paper, a continuous representation of the polynomial chaos expansion (PCE)-based surrogate model is used to describe the uncertainty of space objects along with time. This PCE model facilitates the propagation of sampling points representing orbital uncertainty at any time. A machine learning-based Bayesian optimization method is employed to determine the conjunction time and then the collision probability. A data-driven Gaussian process regression model is built to approximate the Hausdorff distance, which is a distance metric between two space objects with uncertainty and is used as an objective function for Bayesian optimization. The proposed PCE model and Bayesian optimization do not require the Gaussian assumption and provide a general framework to calculate the conjunction time and collision probability. Two numerical experiments are used to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and its close performance to the traditional Monte Carlo sampling-based method.

The consistently increasing population of space debris in orbit about the Earth is becoming an increasingly unavoidable problem, necessitating a proper handling of the problem of sensor tasking to effectively and efficiently obtain observations of space objects to maintain catalogs of their positions and velocities. A variety of approaches have been explored to achieve this in an autonomous fashion, assisting with space traffic management. This work presents new statistical analysis of the Kullback–Leibler divergence justifying the use of its expected value in generating sensor schedules. This divergence’s use as an objective measure is extended to simultaneously consider, in an impartial manner, multiple observations of potentially varying quality and type into a common space, namely the information space, by mapping them to an arbitrary reference time. This time mapping is then shown to exhibit improvements in performance not only with respect to the estimate at the reference time, but over the entire tracking interval.

Review of contact and contactless active space debris removal approaches

David A.WeintraubLife on Mars: What to Know Before We Go2018Princeton University PressISBN: 978-0-6911-8053-3