By Chris Forrester
Brian Weimer (Partner, Sheppard Mullin) moderated a very timely panel which focussed on the EU’s role in space sustainability, and including the worrying aspects of orbital debris and space and traffic management.
Miguel Ángel Molina (Deputy General Manager, GMV) explained for delegates that the EU’s upcoming ‘Space Act’ will contain rules that have to be followed. “The details are not yet known, but the process is needed to cope with the very real problems and the amount of debris in space, and we hope that the Act requires that everyone follows the same rules.”
It was crucial to have reliable propulsion, and this extended to the end of life for a satellite. You need to be able to dispose of a satellite safely, and many satellites now in orbit do not have this functionality. The new Act must apply everywhere, and with a full agreement including from Russia and China, and the US, Molina added.
Daniel Bock (CTO, Managing Director & Founder, Morpheus Space) said that reliability in space was vital, although saying how electrical propulsion was a slower method of propulsion, usually leading to longer life in space for the satellite but also used for in-orbit manoeuvrability. “We use 40 thrusters in a box, so that if one unit fails then we know that the mission is not threatened.” However, he said that reliability was key.
Francho Garcia (CEO & Co-Founder, Arkadia Space) said that he hoped the new Space Act would address both chemical and electrical propulsion, especially for de-orbiting needs..
Araz Feyzi (Co-founder & CTO, Kayhan Space) said that you could imagine have a car which had no brakes or steering. This would be crazy in space, and while the various propulsion systems were important the systems also needed to be reliable. It is complex. A European set of rules is one thing, but what if another nation brought in its own set of rules? “We believe that every satellite operator needs to publish – at least – their trajectory in space.”
Prof. Chiara Manfletti (CEO, Neuraspace) advised that the authorities needed to be very careful with their regulations. The counter argument could be that we do not get universal acceptance, and where there might not be a sharing of every aspect of data. One solution, she suggested, was to match what happens at sea and with aircraft, where they transmit with a transponder beacon as to location, speed, tracking, and so forth.