Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Space debris plunges to Earth, burning its way through the atmosphere.
Image credit: The Aerospace Corporation

The recent revelation concerning pollution input into Earth’s stratosphere due to reentering spacecraft, rocket bodies, and atmospheric dumping of other human-made clutter is striking a nerve in space law circles.

First, the problem.

New research using high-flying aircraft armed with special collection devices have discovered significant amounts of metals in aerosols in the atmosphere. This residue is likely from increasingly frequent launches and returns of spacecraft and satellites. Most notably, the uptick in Starlink constellations of satellites put in place by SpaceX – with other competitive systems by other firms and countries to follow.

That mass of in-falling refuse is altering atmospheric chemistry in ways that could well impact Earth’s atmosphere and ozone layer.

Credit: The Aerospace Corporation/Center for Space Policy and Strategy

Rarefied region

“We are finding this human-made material in what we consider a pristine area of the atmosphere,” said Dan Cziczo, one of a team of scientists involved in a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study. He is a co-author of the NOAA work reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“And if something is changing in the stratosphere—this stable region of the atmosphere—that deserves a closer look,” says Cziczo, professor and head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences in Purdue’s College of Science. He is an expert in atmospheric science who has spent decades studying this rarefied region.

Starlink satellites.
Credit: SpaceX

Orbital use fee

One legal beagle legal assessment and approach to dealing with the issue – an “orbital use fee” — will appear in a forthcoming publication of Southern Methodist University’s Journal of Air Law and Commerce.

“More specifically, I am arguing that the proceeds of such a fee would go towards funding the research and remediation regarding compositional changes to Earth’s upper atmosphere caused by FCC-mandated satellite reentry.”

That’s the view of Michael Runnels, an assistant professor of business law at California State University in Los Angeles.

Titled “On Who Should Pay When Orbital Debris ‘Trickles-down’ in a Tragedy of the Low Earth Orbit Commons,” the purpose of the article is to tackle the question of who should pay when orbital debris “trickles down” in a manner that compromises Earth’s satellite-reliant infrastructure and otherwise causes damage to Earth’s environment, persons, and property.

Clutter in the cosmos.
Credit: Used with permission: Melrae Pictures/Space Junk 3D

Tragedy of the commons

Runnels describes the low Earth orbit (LEO) environment as a classical “tragedy of the commons” scene and draws from studies conducted by NASA, the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, as well as the United Nations.

What’s recommended by Runnels is specific language to amend Title III of the Communications Act of 1934. That Act created and charged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with regulating commercial satellite systems. A satellite constellation “orbital use fee” (OUF) would be established. That OUF would then fund orbital debris remediation projects, related research, and remediation of the environmental impacts of satellite constellations.

Maelstrom of orbital debris

As the paper points out, experts note that the global space market grew by 8 percent to $424 billion in 2022 and is expected to be valued at more than $737 billion by 2030.

The atmospheric layers from the ground up to the boundary with space, showing natural phenomena, human inputs and resultant impacts. These human inputs impact the troposphere (by enhancing climate change), the stratosphere (through ozone loss from multiple causes), the mesosphere (by influencing metal chemistry and accumulation and increasing noctilucent clouds), and the thermosphere (by likely causing contraction which will impact orbiting satellites).
Image credit: Jamie D. Shutler, et al.

That market will certainly be impacted if LEO is enshrouded in an impenetrable maelstrom of orbital debris moving at speeds seven times faster than a bullet.

“Given that the U.S. leads the world in the total number of satellites in space per country, and SpaceX will own more satellites than each country in the world combined once it fully deploys Starlink,” the Runnels paper concludes by arguing that “the U.S. is uniquely positioned to engage its allies in forging the foundation of customary international space law.”

Similarly, as pointed out by Cziczo and research colleagues, an estimation is that as many as 50,000 more satellites may reach orbit by 2030. In the next few decades, up to half of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles would contain metals from reentry. What effect that could have on the atmosphere, the ozone layer and life on Earth is yet to be understood.