Long-term Sustainability Of Outer Space Activities Research Articles

Anti-weaponization of Outer Space for Maintaining Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities

Space weaponization should be prevented because of its detrimental effects on the long-term sustainability of outer space activities (LTSOSA). International law that currently governs weaponization in outer space should be implemented, and international rules that pertain to the LTSOSA should impose direct and indirect soft-law constraints on space weaponization. Nevertheless, the direct and indirect roles of international law in inhibiting space weaponization are limited, and a legal lacuna still exists in the governance of conventional weapons in the Earth's orbit. Independent and more focused discussions on specific issues related to space security are recommended given that the disagreement on related issues has prevented real progress from being made during multilateral discussions addressing the space technologies that could be used in a hostile manner. The integration of some norms of responsible space activity into the new LTSOSA Guidelines discussed under the auspices of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is also recommended, along with an ongoing strong political constraint on the deployment and testing of dedicated space weapons in outer space through the adoption of the United Nations General Assembly resolutions and international condemnation. The latter is a good alternative under the current circumstances to preserve the LTSOSA by working against the weaponization of outer space.

A legal approach to the national emergency management of space weather: China as a case study

The attention of the international space community has been drawn to space weather over the last two decades, not only because of its uncertainty and its adverse effects on the safety of space operations and the long-term sustainability of outer space activities (LTSOSA), but also because of its negative societal and economic impacts on the ground. The national emergency management of space weather is indispensable for China because China has both a large number of assets in outer space and infrastructure on the ground that are vulnerable to space weather. While China gives weight to the monitoring of space weather events by deploying a series of space- and ground-based systems, its national-level management of space weather events is inadequate. China, compared to the USA, is still a long way from having scientific and effective emergency management of severe space weather in the areas of space weather science research, response, and rulemaking. Current international hard laws that address the space weather issue play a limited role because these rules are all general. The Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (the UNCOPUOS Guidelines for the LTSOSA), although they provide soft-law guidance addressing the harmful impacts of space weather on space activities from the perspectives of mitigation, preparedness, monitoring, and early warning, neither address the response to or recovery from extreme space weather events in outer space nor provide for space weather mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery regimes on the ground. Apart from the international law and the soft-law guidance, Chinese national laws only provide general guidelines for the emergency management of space weather. To enhance its national capacity to address space weather and minimize the harmful societal and economic impacts of space weather, a comprehensive legal regime for the emergency management of space weather should be in place in China; this should primarily revolve around mitigation, preparedness, monitoring, early warning, response, recovery, capacity-building, and international cooperation.

Legal and regulatory framework of long term sustainability of outer space activities (LTSOSA), space security and its contribution towards human security

Long Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities (LTSOSA) was adopted during the UNCOPUOS Session in June 2019. It consists of 21 guidelines in four (4) categories, namely: policy and regulatory framework of outer space activities; safety of outer space operations; international cooperation, capacity building and awareness; and technical research and development. The LTSOSA is in line with the definition of Space Security which relates to guaranteed access to Space and the ability to freely exploit space for various purposes. Space Security cover both: safety, sustainability and the security of the space system and actors. While Human Security is an approach to assist the Member States in identifying and addressing widespread and cross-cutting challenges to the survival, livelihood and dignity of their people. It calls for people-centered, comprehensive, context-specific and prevention-oriented responses that strengthen the protection and empowerment of all people. This article will be focused on analyzing and elaborating three (3) main issues: The correlation among LTSOSA, Space Security and Human Security; The Contributions of LTSOSA and Space Security toward the achievement of Human Security’s Objectives; and Legal and Regulatory Framework of LTSOSA, Space Security and Human Security.

Capacity building in regional space cooperation: Asia-pacific space cooperation organization

The increasing gap in the space capabilities of different countries has led to the need for capacity building in modern times. Space capacity building of countries without or with limited space capacity via international cooperation with advanced spacefaring nations is a good practice towards intragenerational equity among all spacefaring countries, and between spacefaring and non-spacefaring countries at the same period of time. A case study is used here to show the current situation of the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) and its member states that are associated with their space capacity building. The study finds that neither the satellite technology development model developed by Wood and Weigel (2011) nor the model developed by Ercan and Kale (2017) is a good fit for the development of space capability in all of the developing countries. Therefore, using the APSCO member states as a case study may offer guidelines towards the space capacity building of other developing countries. Moreover, an in-depth analysis of the merits and flaws of APSCO’s capacity building programs through comparing them with similar projects carried out by the European Space Agency (ESA), the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) and some other countries is conducive to providing some references for regional cooperation in the field of space capacity building. While international space law and the APSCO Convention can provide the general principles for capacity building activities under the framework of APSCO, they are only relevant to the development of scientific and technological capacities for space and human resources rather than organizational development and legal frameworks. Some international soft laws can likewise provide guidance for the capacity building activities of APSCO and its member states in the areas of international direct television broadcasting, remote sensing and cooperative way. To enhance its and its member states’ space capabilities, APSCO, in the context of space commercialization and maintaining the long-term sustainability of outer space activities (LTSOSA), should establish a comprehensive internal regime that addresses scientific and technological capacity building for space, human resources, organizational development and legal frameworks, a flexible regime for international cooperation with other developed spacefaring nations and international organizations with relevant technical capabilities and an internal research center for space law, and actively expand its membership by embracing other economically or technologically developed spacefaring nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

A path forward to better space security: Finding new solutions to space debris, space situational awareness and space traffic management

This article addresses the growing problems of space debris elevating the increased risk of orbital collisions as well as the difficulty of accurate space situational awareness, especially with regard to smaller space debris. These problems of space situational awareness (SSA) and space traffic management (STM) will become more acute as perhaps as many as twenty thousand new satellites are deployed in low Earth orbit (LEO) as part of new large scale constellations. This problem will grow as these LEO satellites need to be replaced within a cycle of perhaps every five to seven years . Many believe that there is now a need for space traffic management (STM) capabilities to cope with all these issues. There are no specific agreements, however, on how space traffic management might be systematically accomplished at the international level. The good news is that the Working Group on the Long Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities (LTSOSA) and COPUOS agreed to 21 new guidelines relating to the longer term sustainability of space and which help to establish a foundation for future efforts to create a process that could aid future space traffic control processes. Several key guidelines which were discussed extensively within the Working Group which could have aided the future prospects for traffic management, however, were not agreed before the Working Group adjourned in June 2018.This article also highlights the problem of space traffic management in near-space or ‘protospace’. These concerns grow as there is more activity in the stratosphere due to deployment of high altitude platform systems, more launches through the stratospher to deploy satellite constellation, more de-orbit operations, and perhaps increased operation of spaceplanes and hypersonic transportation in these upper altitude areas not covered by current commercial air traffic management and control. This article not only addresses these types of issues in terms of safety concerns and increased risks, but also suggests new and innovative ways that these concerns might be addressed through regulatory reforms and codification of best practices. These proposals thus outline new ways forward and suggest reforms that could supplement the efforts of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in its efforts to address these safety and security concerns.

Maintaining Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities: Creation of Regulatory Framework to Guide the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization and Selected Legal Issues

This article provides a summary on the origins of the concept of the long-term sustainability of outer space activities (LTSOSA) by reviewing previous discussions related to the definition of this concept with the conclusion that the LTSOSA is in fact derived from the concept of sustainable development and comprises 5 legal elements, including the principles of intergenerational equity, sustainable use, intragenerational equity, integration, and peaceful purposes. In this regard, the LTSOSA to some extent has been already reflected in international environmental law and international space law. This article, therefore, argues that to enhance the LTSOSA, the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO), which is a regional intergovernmental cooperative organization, has to embrace an LTSOSA regime because of its own interests, the need to fulfill its international obligations that have been imposed by international environmental law and international space law, and the need for regional efforts, which can complement both national and international efforts. Finally, it is concluded that the APSCO should establish internal legal regulations that address issues related to the LTSOSA, at least those that take into consideration space debris mitigation, space weather, space traffic management, capacity building (especially the transfer of space-oriented environmentally sound technology), and radio frequency interference.