Space is no longer the empty, boundless frontier scientists observed during the early days of exploration. Today, Earth’s orbits are rapidly filling up — driven by exponential technological growth, declining launch costs and a burgeoning private sector.
With the proliferation of satellite constellations, commercial and scientific ventures, and a growing list of spacefaring nations, the orbital domain is increasingly crowded, loosely regulated and beset with risk.
Many experts agree that the need for robust, effective space traffic management (STM) is more apparent than ever, but a host of questions remain. Among them: In a domain with rivalries and competing private interests, is global cooperation on space governance even possible, and if so, what roles should the United States and its allies play to establish future STM governance for the safety and prosperity of all users of space?
If ever there was doubt about the need for effective space traffic management, the world received a wake-up call in February 2024. A defunct, 35-year-old Russian spy satellite and a 25-year-old NASA scientific satellite came within just 10 meters of colliding on orbit, as reported by media outlets. Had the massive objects collided, the consequences could have been catastrophic, generating thousands of pieces of debris and threatening the safety of every other spacecraft on orbit, including crewed missions.
Currently, nearly 50,000 objects are being tracked in Earth’s orbits. Among these, more than 10,500 are active satellites and most, roughly 80%, function in low Earth orbit (LEO), which extends from 100 kilometers to 2,000 kilometers above the planet. In the past five years, the number of space assets has tripled, and this explosive growth shows no sign of slowing. SpaceX, the world’s largest satellite operator, reported that from January to June 2024, each of its Starlink satellites averaged 14 maneuvers to avoid collisions, mostly with space debris — totaling 50,000 avoidance maneuvers, according to an October 2024 commentary from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Astronauts in the International Space Station have been forced to shelter in place, delay spacewalks and execute emergency maneuvers multiple times because of debris, which constitutes most objects in LEO. Meanwhile, disputes have flared up between operators representing Starlink, OneWeb and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — at one point touching off a formal complaint to the United Nations about Starlink satellites approaching the CCP’s space station.
The root cause seems obvious, that LEO is becoming more congested, and the risk of a collision triggering a succession of destructive debris — the so-called Kessler syndrome — escalates with each new launch. Projections indicate satellite constellations will double within the next decade, making the numbers increasingly unsustainable, the CSIS article said.
Despite these risks, there are no international rules of the road for space traffic management. Global STM remains an informal process with limited coordination among governments or between public and private sectors. The U.S., while a leader in space capabilities, has yet to integrate its national STM systems, and it is unclear which agencies will bear responsibility for what tasks, the CSIS said. The Department of Defense (DOD) traditionally has cataloged space objects and provided free space situational awareness data to operators worldwide. In 2018, a presidential directive ordered this responsibility transferred to the Department of Commerce, launching a transition that may take years to fully achieve.
In late 2024, the Office of Space Commerce introduced its Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS), a program that when fully operational will provide space monitoring data through the space-track.org website, enabling the DOD to focus on defense-related space activities. Yet the technology’s rollout has been slow, hampered by delays and questions about long-term priorities, operator protocols and future norms of behavior, according to the CSIS and media reports.
Along with these questions, debate has arisen about whether federal funding for TraCSS should be halted and STM shifted to the private sector. Many companies, however, have balked at the idea and called for robust, one-stop STM, urging the system’s full integration with tracking by the U.S. Space Force — the DOD’s space traffic system manager.
While the private sector has demonstrated increasing capability in space, government still holds the key when it comes to developing standards of international STM, industry leaders have said. This became apparent in July 2025 when U.S. Senate appropriators, siding with industry, rejected a proposal to defund TraCSS, instead allocating $60 million to keep the program alive and sending a message that STM is a government responsibility. “It’s really important that there be coordination amongst these different systems, so we don’t have this fragmented system,” Audrey Schaffer, vice president of strategy and policy at space-tracking firm Slingshot Aerospace, said in a Reuters report at the time. “If the U.S. doesn’t have a system that it brings to the table, I’m not really sure how the U.S. exercises any leadership in the establishment of international space traffic management.”
While space is unique in its technological challenges, international cooperation has been required before in other domains. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) are examples of governance structures that transformed unregulated domains into orderly, safe environments for travel and commerce.
The Law of the Sea Convention established rules for navigation, resource management and environmental protection after centuries of uncoordinated activity. The ICAO created a framework for airspace management, including air traffic control, flight planning and safety protocols. Both organizations emerged after periods of conflict, but their creation led to an era of collaborative rulemaking, data-sharing and acceptance of universal standards by most nations.
“Signatories of the treaty that set up the International Maritime Organization (IMO) agree to enshrine IMO rules in their national regulations, [and] the ICAO puts out standards that are adopted by countries that signed onto the treaty establishing the ICAO,” Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the CSIS, told Apogee. “These international bodies are not regulators. That still happens at the national level. There would be value in an international agreement on space rules of the road, something akin to collision regulations for maritime transportation. For such rules to be effective, they would need to be reflected in national regulations, like with IMO rules.”
The CSIS is one of several groups citing the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and ICAO in connection with global space traffic management. A June 2023 report by the Rand Corp. think tank also references these examples as potential lessons useful to foster international collaboration on STM. Taking that idea another step, Rand’s report lays out goals that suggest any potential international STM framework should promote:
- Reliable, timely sharing of orbital and situational data.
- Standardized protocols for collision avoidance and maneuver coordination.
- Dispute resolution and compliance mechanisms.
- Inclusive governance with participation from major spacefaring nations, emerging players and nonstate actors.
As Rand’s analysis notes, the heart of the STM challenge is not technology but governance. Safe and sustainable operations require agreement on protocols, data-sharing and conflict resolution. Yet, international consensus on such a system remains elusive, and any effort to build consensus would likely be fraught with challenges born out of competing national interests. For one, Rand’s research notes that despite more than 40 years of studies and workshops, no single model for an international space traffic management organization (ISTMO) has gained widespread acceptance. European experts seem to be the most optimistic about the feasibility of an ISTMO. U.S. experts remain more cautious. However, history shows that as risks mount, the momentum for international cooperation grows. For an ISTMO to endure and function effectively, Rand advised that it must:
- Wield legitimate, narrowly defined authority with buy-in from spacefaring powers — including the Chinese Communist Party, Russia and the United States — as well as regional organizations.
- Possess adequate funding and technical expertise, with staff and budgets comparable to the ICAO, IMO or the International Telecommunication Union.
- Balance state contributions with the involvement of industry, academia, nongovernmental organizations and nonspacefaring nations to ensure representation and operational excellence.
- Develop rules through consensus but also have voting and enforcement mechanisms in place to prevent gridlock and ensure compliance.
The experience of ICAO and IMO demonstrates that international organizations thrive when they build trust through reliable data collection, technical expertise and inclusive processes that allow nonstate actors to contribute to and shape norms, Rand said.
The U.N. Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space provide a starting point, encouraging states to share contact information, improve orbital data accuracy, monitor debris and assess collision risks. Regional initiatives, such as the European Union’s Space Surveillance and Tracking program and the United Kingdom’s Astra Carta demonstrate preference for coordinated efforts.
“The air and maritime domains have shown how international norms and customs preceded the hard codification of actual regulations, a process that has been underway in the space domain since the 1950s,” Rand said. “An ISTMO with strong legitimacy must be able to convert current norms of behavior and activities that support STM into a coherent body of rules and regulations by which space actors will abide.”
In the United States, the ongoing development of TraCSS is a positive step, industry experts say. The continued involvement of industry — including by SpaceX’s participation in TraCSS beta testing – will be critical to ensure future STM systems meet operational realities.
Rather than wait for a crisis to catalyze action, the space community should seize the moment and begin the work of building the governance structures needed to ensure the safety and sustainability of critical space assets, services and activities. Acting now will enable the international community to develop solutions for protecting and preserving space now and in the future. ~ Rand Space Enterprise Initiative
In letters sent July 7, 2025, to the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees that fund the Commerce Department, seven industry groups expressed support for continued TraCSS funding. “Keeping space traffic coordination within the Department of Commerce preserves military resources for core defense missions and prevents the conflation of space safety with military control — critical to U.S. leadership in setting international standards and norms for space activities,” the industry letter said, as reported in SpaceNews. “Without funding for space traffic coordination, U.S. commercial and government satellite operators would face greater risks — putting critical missions in harm’s way, raising the cost of doing business, and potentially driving U.S. industry to relocate overseas.”
Rand, meanwhile, seizing upon the best practices of maritime and aviation governance, recommended the following steps going forward:
- Initiate formal international dialogue. Major space powers should work with stakeholders to launch ISTMO discussions, targeting an STM convention within five years and concrete implementation milestones within 10.
- Design a cooperative, inclusive framework. Model organizational structures after ICAO and IMO, ensuring representation from all regions and both state and nonstate stakeholders, and build flexible, consensus-based rulemaking procedures.
- Gather and fund technical expertise. Invest in developing a team of space traffic experts, with sufficient staffing and resources to continuously improve space situational awareness, data integration and operational guidelines.
- Explore alternative funding mechanisms. Evaluate orbital-use fees or satellite performance bonds, in addition to traditional state contributions, to ensure sustainable funding, and incentivize responsible behavior.
As orbits grow crowded and debris and other hazards multiply, the price of inaction is rising, said Rand. Without robust, internationally accepted rules and operational protocols, the risk of catastrophic collisions, debris proliferation and geopolitical conflict will only escalate. “Rather than wait for a crisis to catalyze action, the space community should seize the moment and begin the work of building the governance structures needed to ensure the safety and sustainability of critical space assets, services and activities. Acting now will enable the international community to develop solutions for protecting and preserving space now and in the future,” Rand said.
Report co-author Bruce McClintock, lead of the Rand Space Enterprise Initiative, a senior policy researcher and a professor at the Rand School of Public Policy, urged continued effort toward global STM. “The international community is at a tipping point for STM,” he told Apogee. “Research strongly indicates that the space domain’s safety and sustainability are under a clear and present threat from debris and congestion. Put simply, it is not a matter of if but when there will be costly near misses and collisions that generate more debris.”
Fellow co-author Douglas C. Ligor, director of the Management, Technology and Capabilities Program within the Homeland Security Research Division at Rand, and a professor at the Rand School of Public Policy, agreed and said that what is most alarming is that the orbital domain’s degradation is happening as increasing numbers of spacecraft are populating space, drastically escalating the risk.
“Many researchers believe we are already at the early stages of the Kessler syndrome,” Ligor told Apogee. “If not abated, we could lose the ability to operate in [an] entire orbital shell, some of which are already referred to as ‘bad neighborhoods.’”
Since its 2023 report, Rand has continued to explore the issue of global STM and plans to release a follow-up research study. The new project will provide a road map for advancing from the current decentralized space-tracking context to an international space traffic management system, Rand said.
“An international STM system would have many of the similarities, in terms of governance functions, as other domains like air and maritime,” Ligor said. “An organization, perhaps proposed by the U.S., would need to: adopt a legitimate and trusted internal organization and voting system; set binding rules and standards; provide transparent analysis and decision making; and mitigate and adjudicate (through peaceful deliberations and processes) conflicts between sovereign states and space operators.”