Space Security and Sustainable Space Operations: A Commercial Satellite Operator Perspective

Abstract

The increasing need of commercial Satcom services (for governments, economy, social, and cultural purposes) augments the call for a coherent “space security” discussion which will lead to the development of rules and guidelines for sustainable space operations. Two main items of utmost importance to commercial space operators are elaborated in this chapter: the management of space operations in increasingly “crowded orbits” and the protection satellite services should receive, both in space and on Earth. During the last two decades at least, guidelines, best practices, agreed principles, and “soft law,” have been the pragmatic answer to move forward. However, the exponential increase of space-based services will call for a “governance framework” which should strengthen the principles of the Outer Space Treaty and ensure that the Treaty will remain effective in the coming decades.

Views expressed in this article are the author’s one only, and cannot be Eutelsat ones.