Space Traffic Management is Needed Now! IAA, IISL, and IAF Join Their Forces to Propose Long Term Sustainability of Space Operations

Thursday 24 October 2019, 10:45 – 11:35
Location: The Walter E. Washington Convention Center – Grand Ballroom A

As space activities increase in number, participants, and diversity, issues pertaining to space situational awareness within the space environment, space surveillance & tracking of active and inactive objects, and space traffic management in and to orbit have captured the attention of the international space community.

In October 2018, at the opening ceremony of the 69th International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, the International Academy of Astronautics, International Astronautical Federation, and International Institute of Space Law committed to joining their organizational competencies and the expertise of individual members to develop concepts for STM and to provide advice to decision-makers for the benefit of the space sector and humankind.

This joint initiative integrates the 2018 IAA Cosmic Study on Space Traffic Management – Towards a Roadmap for Implementation, which was presented to UNCOPUOS in the spring of that year. In addition, the IAA brings its decades of technical expertise through its individual memberships from 90 countries. The IISL brings to the joint initiative regulatory “know-how” from all legal backgrounds around the world. Through the IAF’s organization memberships, a large reservoir of member agencies, industries, operators and users are engaged thus guaranteeing the broadest possible basis for a successful venture. Space Traffic Management (STM) requires the use of space situational awareness for the purpose of maximizing orbital safety, space security, and operational sustainability. However, one cannot manage that which one does not know, and one does not know that which one does not measure! Therefore, STM is critically founded upon holistically measuring (i.e. monitoring) the space domain.

The proposed GNF event will provide information regarding this new collaboration. This outreach to the space community will be both high-level, bounding the issues and the current status quo of the SSA Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) STM community, and sufficiently detailed to convey technical capabilities and governance initiatives that currently exist and those that are proposed.

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