From the World Economic Forum the following is the platform for shaping the future of mobility.
The rapidly growing space economy is expected to reach $1 trillion USD by the 2030s. However, this growth is threatened by the increase of human-made space debris, which is approaching a critical level. Close to 1 million objects larger than 1 cm travel at 27,000 km per hour in Earth orbit. Any one of these objects poses a risk to satellites or spacecraft, including those with humans on board. Satellites power our modern economy as they provide navigation signals for billions of devices around the globe. They monitor our environment in ways that can only be done from space, conduct other cutting-edge science missions and provide connectivity to remote areas, including ships and planes. Debris endangers these services and benefits, along with human space flight and missions to and beyond Earth’s orbits.
As a space community, we must start doing a better job at safeguarding the Earth orbits and ensure we use them in a sustainable and safe manner now and for future generations. This is why we believe in minimizing and preventing, where possible, any new debris created as a result of our missions. Critically, no actions should be taken that purposefully create debris. We therefore commit to working with governments, civil society, commercial partners and competitors to substantially reduce any new debris creation. We also call for new collaborations in transparency between operators. Finally, we must continue to work together to speed up development of technologies and practices for the disposal of spacecraft at end-of-life, and for removing existing debris already in orbit. These are necessary steps in ensuring more responsible operations in space, which we all share. We encourage companies throughout the space sector to join us on this mission and to work together to inform and help governments create a practical set of regulations for the sustainable use of space.
Signatories
- AIRBUS
- Bharti Global
- Inmarsat
- Lockheed Martin Corporation
- OneWeb
- Spire Global
- Astra
- D-Orbit
- Intersputnik
- Maxar
- Planet
- Thales Alenia Space
- Astroscale
- Honeywell
- Jacobs
- NIGCOMSAT
- SES
- Voyager Space