Space Debris

The India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will send a team of its experts to Pawanpur village, in the Chandrapur district of Maharashtra to investigate what is believed to be remnants of a disintegrated Chinese rocket.
Space debris or remnants of satellites, rockets, and other objects in space crashing into the earth are a common occurrence but it is relatively rare for such objects to fall onto land.

Space debris is a result of tens of thousands of rocket parts from launches, past collisions, defunct satellites, and fragments after anti-satellite weapon strikes (ASAT).
While some have re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, many others have continued to orbit Earth and collide with active satellites.
Given that the number of launches and payloads peaked in 2021, the crisis has only intensified. Hours have to be spent monitoring the debris to plan manoeuvres to avoid collisions.
Also considering the extra fuel spent on such movements, it becomes a costly exercise. India did 19 such corrections in 2021, the highest ever for the country.
The U.S. and Russia/USSR are at present responsible for over 70% of debris.

According to a Bank of America Report, the $350 billion space market today will touch $2.7 trillion by 2050.
Until recently, outer space has been the sole preserve of states. But private entities are now major players in space commerce.
Space becomes a critical factor in shaping the military balance of power on the earth, there is growing competition among states.
The US has traditionally dominated outer space in the commercial domain. Its military competition with Russia set the norms in the security field.
China’s emergence as a major space power — in both civilian and military — is reshaping astropolitics. The dramatic expansion of Chinese space capabilities and Beijing’s ambition to dominate outer space have lent a new urgency for democratic powers to come together to secure their national interests as well as promote sustainable order in the skies above.

Space situational awareness (SSA) involves monitoring the movement of all objects — natural (meteors) and man-made (satellites) — and tracking space weather. Today, space is integral to our lives and disruption of space-based communications and earth observation will have serious consequences.
As commercial and military activity in outer space grows, the 20th-century agreements like the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty (1979) need reinforcement and renewal.
India is a party to all the major international treaties/regulations related to outer space, including Outer Space Treaty, the Rescue Agreement, the Liability Convention and the Registration Convention and has also signed the Moon Treaty.

The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework on international space law, including the following principles:

the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;
outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;
outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means;
States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner;
the Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes;
astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind;
States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental entities;
States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and
States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.

The Agreement reaffirms and elaborates on many of the provisions of the Outer Space Treaty as applied to the Moon and other celestial bodies, providing that those bodies should be used exclusively for peaceful purposes, that their environments should not be disrupted, that the United Nations should be informed of the location and purpose of any station established on those bodies.
In addition, the Agreement provides that the Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind and that an international regime should be established to govern the exploitation of such resources when such exploitation is about to become feasible.

Read about India’s Space Situational Awareness Initiative at: https://officerspulse.com/project-netra/

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