Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Taking the fall. Space hardware dives into Earth’s atmosphere with some fragments making their way to the ground.
Image credit: ESA/D.Ducros

Russia, China, and the United States should step up cooperation in the space sector for the sake of common progress, and one of those steps is de-cluttering the global space commons.

Earlier this week, according to a report in Russia’s TASS news agency, Wang Guoyu, the founder of Beijing Shiyu Outer Space Consulting, broached the multi-country action idea at an event dedicated to the International Day of Intellectual Property held in Beijing.

Credit: The Aerospace Corporation’s Space Safety Institute

“We propose a novel approach to remediate the most dangerous debris in low Earth orbit – massive derelicts owned by Russia, the U.S. and China. These objects are in imminent danger of colliding, after which the cost and risk of operating in space will increase for everyone,” said Chuck Dickey, co-leader of Three Country-Trusted Broker (TCTB) in Houston, Texas.

TCTB was created and is led by Dickey (United States), Valentin Uvarov (Russia) and Guoyu Wang (China).

Image credit: TCTB

Principles of cooperation

Dickey told Inside Outer Space that TCTB sees cooperation among these governments, perhaps achieved by using a neutral, transparent, international non-governmental organization to shape a plan for space junk remediation.

TCTB would act like a mediator to facilitate cooperative planning, and also act as the prime contractor to manage the work.

“Planning would help reach consensus on necessary principles of cooperation,” Dickey added, “including cost, risk and information sharing, legal consent, object selection methodology, a procurement plan, dispute resolution mechanisms, and protection of sovereign prerogatives.

UN recognition

“We are currently seeking recognition from the UN (Consultative Status) in order to facilitate cooperation,” Dickey said, through the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the UN’s Office of Outer Space Affairs. A vote on this recognition is currently scheduled in New York during May 15-23, he said.

In an opinion piece, “Orbital Debris Threatens Your Future – Here’s the Remedy” provided to Inside Outer Space, Dickey and colleagues from Russia and China, underscore that there is risk today from high mass debris in high and low Earth orbit.

In-orbit explosions can be related to the mixing of residual fuel that remain in tanks or fuel lines once a rocket stage or satellite is discarded in Earth orbit. The resulting explosion can destroy the object and spread its mass across numerous fragments with a wide spectrum of masses and imparted speeds.
Credit: ESA

“Like cross-border environmental pollution or genocide,” that risk is “another ‘problem from hell’” – requiring cooperation among sovereign governments to avoid a tragedy, “but also because the risk it portends is based on statistical probabilities.”

Derelict space hardware

According to the TCTB’s website, there are roughly two thousand mostly intact derelict rocket bodies and spacecraft left in space by Russia, the U.S., China, France, the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan and India, before the commercial space era began.

“These government-owned objects, each weighing between one and ten tons, share similarities which make them amenable to consideration for remediation purposes as a single class or ‘market,’ distinguishing them from other types of orbital debris or cross-border terrestrial pollution on Earth.”

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