Space domain awareness experts at SATELLITE 2023 said the industry must urgently collaborate to manage debris, noting 130 million fragments under 1 cm and 7,400 active satellites — a 22 percent increase over five years. Vyoma co-founder Dr. Luisa Buinhas noted: “We can still only track 3 percent of objects that are larger than a paperclip.”
Intelsat’s Joe Chan said congestion doesn’t have to be dangerous if rules are followed: “If you don’t abandon your car on the road, and you try to maintain where you are going.”
Explore the Show Daily 2023 Wrap Up Issue
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
SCOUT Space CEO Eric Ingram called for creativity, collaboration, and proactivity: “If we don’t act together as an industry [and] work on coordinating ourselves and figure out how to intermingle on all the things we’re working on, government will do that for us.” He warned that a major collision while traffic is dense could force regulatory intervention.
Buinhas advocated a pragmatic approach: rather than seeking agreement from 75 spacefaring nations, bring together agencies that share a vision before expanding outward.
Telespazio’s Andrea Cardellicchio identified the central commercial question: “How much of those [space traffic management] services have to be freely available to users? It’s very important to us what is the right way because we are either creating or destroying the market.” VS
