As the risk from space debris grows, the United States and its allies must focus on adapting to a more challenging space environment. The space debris challenge will become more difficult in the coming decades. Despite a prevailing emphasis from prominent experts on the need to strive toward space sustainability, little tangible progress has been made.
The rampant growth in space activities and the subsequent increase in debris generated by such activity far outpace debris mitigation and remediation efforts. Furthermore, the risk for space conflict involving debris-generating kinetic attacks — or even the use of a nuclear weapon in space — continues to grow and increases the likelihood of a space environment with multiple debris fields across Earth’s orbits.
Although it remains important to strive toward sustainability or even a circular space economy, those concepts are impractical in the current and near-future geopolitical and astropolitical environments. The reality is a space environment where debris remains an enduring and ever-expanding challenge. In such a reality, space actors, specifically the U.S. and its allies, must prepare and adapt to the growing risk, which requires actions they must initiate today. However, as opposed to conventional wisdom oriented toward more stringent space debris mitigation and debris removal efforts, it is more prudent to focus on strategies, capabilities and supporting policies that enable space actors to operate more effectively in this demanding environment.
Even though dealing with a littered space environment is not ideal, it is inevitable. Space activity will continue to grow; the subsequent space debris will multiply, and the potential for debris-generating kinetic attacks producing even more debris will mount. It is likely these conditions will continue to pose significant consequences for space operations. A sudden and significant reduction in space activity and space security threats, or a significant increase in compliance with more strict space debris mitigation guidelines, all appear unlikely given trends and patterns observed over the past several years. As such, space actors should prepare for the reality that is coming, not the reality they imagined.
Moreover, while there is no shortage of analysis about the risk of space debris from increasing space activity, there seems to be less emphasis on the prospect and consequences of debris-generating kinetic attacks. Such events would only exacerbate the analysis from existing space debris models, and these events seem increasingly likely as geopolitical tensions increase and directly influence astropolitical conditions.
The potential for reckless debris-generating attacks by actors such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Russia should not be ignored. These states have deliberately developed, tested and operationalized hundreds of debris-generating anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons over the past two decades, which would be a significant waste of resources if there is no intent to integrate them into planning or otherwise employ them. These capabilities nest within both states’ likely strategic approaches, but in different ways. Russia’s strategic approach in a conflict potentially includes demonstrative uses of force and attacks with progressive levels of damage, such as escalating to kinetic space attacks or even the detonation of a nuclear weapon in space or at high altitude. The CCP’s likely strategic approach potentially focuses on employing coercive force before conflict expands to compel an adversary from committing forces or intervening in a conflict. Such coercive attacks may include kinetic strikes in space given the significant reliance other states, such as the U.S. and its allies, now have on space to generate and employ global combat power.
Considering such potential for use, the argument that conflict in space is not inevitable should be qualified and reframed. High-intensity conflict in space is not inevitable, but smaller scales of conflict across the continuum seem all but certain. It is just a matter of how much it expands. In fact, conflict in space already is occurring at the low end of the conflict continuum with jamming, lasing, threatening maneuvers and the increasingly menacing posture of ASAT weapons. Fortunately, it does not appear that the threshold for debris-generating conflict has been reached, but it may only be a matter of time – time that seems to be running out.
Space debris generated from conflicts, combined with the inherent proliferation of space debris from continued rapid growth of space activities, will produce a space environment that will be much more challenging. This demands that the U.S. and its allies prepare and adapt to this growing risk.
The overall strategic approach should include the tenets of resilience, maneuver and space domain awareness — very similar to the chief of space operations concept on competitive endurance, but with important distinctions. Resilience must go much further than proliferation and must equally incorporate disaggregation, distribution and diversification — not just in space but across domains. Despite space providing unmatched advantages for individual mission areas — such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance or satellite communications — generating space-like effects from the air and high-altitude regions provides cross-domain resilience that mitigates future risk from space debris, let alone threats. Even within the space domain, diversifying mission areas away from traditional orbits, particularly those at greater risk of space debris, will be critical. Such expanded resilience efforts need a whole joint force effort, not just the U.S. Space Force, which should inherently focus on expanding reconstitution and protection efforts within the space domain.
An important way to accomplish this in space is to develop sustained space maneuver (SSM) capabilities. Maneuver is an increasingly important joint function in space that not only enables space forces to gain a relative advantage against an adversary but also enables them to mitigate the risk from the environment. Just as maneuver forces could traverse through new terrains as capacity expanded in other domains, the same concept in space will allow forces to maneuver as a means of protection against space debris.
Many current satellites can perform small movements to avoid debris, but that capability is significantly limited. Expanding SSM will generate more technologies and options for space forces — not just to protect forces from adversaries but also to avoid debris and better navigate and maneuver in degraded and debris-littered orbits.
Achieving these strategic and capability goals requires developing space policies to enable the space industry to prepare for the expected reality. Future space policies should provide a framework for principles and guidelines on space debris, like previous U.S. space policy directives. In other words, avoid strict regulatory requirements on space debris mitigation that would constrain the space industry. A regulatory framework that encourages debris mitigation efforts instead of requiring it will continue to foster investment, encourage innovation and allow startups to continue competing in the space industry. Subsequently, such an industry would remain competitive internationally and maintain advantages against other markets.
In addition, future space policies should demand that the national security and intelligence communities build space capabilities jointly with allies and partners. Although shared agreements and integrated planning are important, they fall short of integrated capabilities that leverage national, economic and commercial resources. Developing new SSM and other related capabilities, such as space domain awareness, and in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing, are likely to be prohibitively costly, but significantly less so if pursued in a combined approach. Such a policy will enable the U.S. and its allies to more quickly prepare for and adapt to the emerging reality in space and allow allies to build niche space capabilities within an SSM framework.
This strategic approach is clearly contrary to the positions taken by most of the literature on space debris. In fact, many space experts are likely to characterize this approach as advocacy for continued destruction of the space environment. Yet, the likely alternative solutions are neither feasible nor attainable: Cease all new space activity or establish a binding and enforceable multilateral treaty.
A state or set of states could cease all new space activity, but it only will open the way for other states that would undoubtedly seize on the opportunity given the tremendous economic and security advantages space provides. In addition, such action is moot given that many models demonstrate the exponential growth in space debris over the next century even if no future launches occur.
Alternatively, a multilateral treaty seems impossible. Achieving such a feat would be profound and defy how the international system has worked over the past several decades.
The argument presented here does not propose the optimal or ideal solution, merely the most pragmatic one. Of course, it is more beneficial for humans to prevent the proliferation of space debris, but the time to achieve such reality has passed. Geopolitics is to blame. The major hurdles for space sustainability are the geopolitical conditions on Earth. Until multilateralism proves effective in creating significant and effective binding and enforceable international agreements, it will be incredibly challenging to achieve international consensus on space sustainability. Space is simply a reflection of geopolitics and terrestrial economies. It should be no surprise that space is not the sanctuary that many once hoped it could be.
Space debris is the inevitable consequence of operating in space and capitalizing on all the utility it provides — both economically and for security. The reality is that humans benefit significantly from exploiting space, and in the current international and economic system, space debris is a consequence that many states and companies implicitly accept. Rather than anticipating a sustainable space environment in the future, space actors should anticipate one rife with debris.
Space sustainability is not feasible until sustainability can happen on Earth, and we should expect space to develop just as every other domain has. As such, the exponential growth of space debris in the coming years demands the U.S. and its allies start preparing for such a reality to ensure they can rapidly adapt to the future space environment. Initiating the necessary strategic approach and space capabilities development, supported by space policies toward this end, is vital to future success, both in terms of national and economic security. This is not the desired reality; it is not the ideal reality. But it is the reality that will emerge, and those who adapt first will attain greater advantages, both economically and for national security.
About the author: U.S. Army Lt. Col. Benjamin M. Staats is a space operations officer who previously served at U.S. Space Command as a planner and military advisor. He is a Ph.D. student in international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and has master’s degrees in international science and technology policy from George Washington University and operational art and science from Air University.