For better or for worse, the cut-throat competition has been put on a hiatus for a while, between the world’s billionaires to make the cosmic Space their own by sending their respective satellites in greater numbers or prior to the others in line.
With Blue Origins’ Jeff Bezos announcing the Business Park Model and visit beyond Earth’s gravity and Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic snatching such privilege from him and dropping headlines for the same.
Or be it the evergreen contender of spotlight Elon Musk who announced his Rideshare program or the Starlink Constellation, posing benefits of Internet connectivity and philanthropy as well as a threat in the dark for existing satellites.
The race to Space appeared to go on and on.
Space sustainability: the concept, the truths and the threats
With more than thousands of satellites lurking in the Earth’s orbit at different altitudes, offering different services to its residents, be it for ensuring internet connectivity or navigation or reconnaissance.
An expert explains: “The technology for operations such as anti-satellite warfare or GPS jamming already exist”.
“And a lot of people don’t realize how our financial systems now depend on GPS — it’s used to help authenticate transactions. If the space assets controlling GPS are taken out, that would bring financial markets to a halt.”
A few bigger ones may help in advancing science or farther travel and exploration in space, some are simply used by our Scientists to stay in Space and experiment.
However, there has been a new act that Space satellites are supposed to learn: maneuver.
These maneuvers are done to ensure that any space debris travelling uncontrolled, shall not destroy satellites coming in its vicinity.
And hence, out of these vulnerabilities comes the concept of Sustainability in Space.
It is coined to ensure that space remains accessible for all humanity so that it can continue to use outer space for peaceful purposes and greater understanding while uncovering the bigger secrets held in cosmos.
But this will anyhow require international cooperation and discussion, acknowledgment without blame game and agreements designed to ensure that outer space remains safe, clean and ever peaceful.
Challenges to the usability of Space:
Floating in the dark: space Debris threatening other objects in Space:
With most of the technologies to destroy these free-floating useless objects in space, are yet in their nascent stages. The junk like defunct satellites, old rocket parts, and even fragmented objects hit anything that comes in its way.
As of December 2020, these quantify to around 8,800 tones.
These compose of 34,000 objects greater than 10cm in size, 900,000 objects of 1cm to 10cm and 128 million objects of sizes between 1mm and 1cm, to be precise.
But what makes them lethal is not their size, it is their speed which can reach up to 29,000 km/h or 8 km/s, which in space and multiple satellites, can have disastrous impacts on human treasure in space.
The overcrowded tools of Human race in space:
This physical congestion makes every single one of these satellites more vulnerable because any possible collision may lead to further chain reaction.
Like instances in our past, this can create more debris which can ultimately fall on Earth, its residents and shatter their livelihoods.
Therefore, countries like China, India, Russia, and the U.S. have already tested out more than 70 anti-satellite (ASAT) tests collectively.
To maintain and protect these satellites, it takes an extra effort and fuel and any possible glitch can leave the vessel useless.
Cybersecurity: a recent threat in Space
With most of the global operations: communications, management, security and intelligence etc., being relayed through these satellites around the Earth, they play a major role in maintaining security.
But with ever-increasing access and integration, there are greater chances of conflicts, interference and breakdown.
With this chaos in place, countries can be at war.
It triggered panic among the world nations when President Trump said: “We have the Air Force; we’ll have the space force”.
Question is, will the Earth sustain if there goes a war in its closer shelf?
The answer is No.
“The goal is to deter such wars from happening in the first place, or to determine the most appropriate and proportional responses to any actions in space.”
How to solve this impending crisis?
With potential threats to our common battlefield Space, there shall be potential solutions too.
These can range from technical measures like manual removal of space debris, managing the Space traffic especially closer to Earth just like airlines or spreading the situational awareness and streamlining the launches.
The world cannot comprehend and collaborate without policy measures.
On these lines, the world countries with greater Space ambitions are looking forward to agree on and compile ‘Woomera Manual on the International Law of Military Space Operations’, a code of Conduct for working in Space.
There shall be an International Institution to maintain ethical operations of Space and its governance, data-sharing, and even looking over its implementation.
We took a considerable time, before we even acknowledged of the crashing sustainability on our own planet and now the targets do not seem easy to achieve. Is it high time we start thinking of the Space, at least?