Technical programme

E9.1-A6.8. Policy, Legal, Institutional, Economic and Security Aspects of Debris Mitigation, Debris Remediation and STM

This session will address all non-technical aspects of debris mitigation, debris remediation and STM. Papers may focus on aspects of responsibility, liability and registration, on the role of bodies such as UNCOPUOS or IADC, as well as on insurance, financial incentives and funding. In addition, security-related aspects and the role of international cooperation in addressing these issues may be considered.

E9.2. Cyber-based security threats to space missions: establishing the legal, institutional and collaborative framework to counteract them

The increasingly pervasive network connectivity following the Internet explosion introduces a whole new families of cyber-security threats to space missions. To send commands to a spacecraft now you would not need to build a ground station, but you can penetrate from your home or office the existing ground infrastructures, bypassing their protection measures, from anywhere in the world. The questions to be addressed in the session will span across the following issues: - What is the interest of cyber-crime and cyber-activism with respect to space activities? - How are aerospace organisations managing the ability to introduce the right level of security measures in the process to plan and develop new missions? - What legal and protection framework is or has to be put in place to enable secure cooperation across corporate and international boundaries? - How is knowledge about security threats captured, shared, and used to follow the evolution of cyber threats? - Which ones of these specific threats are to be expected to target space missions, from the ground and from space? - What is particularly to be expected from the cyber-space to target outer space? Contribution are expected to focus on cyber-specific legislation, best practices, processes, collaboration methods between law enforcement and institutional partners, and any other aspects of the organization of space missions that are all constituting the formal components to keep a mission “cyber secure”.

E9.3. Norms and Standards for Safe and Responsible Behaviour in Space

The rapid expansion and evolution of the global space arena is characterized by an increasing number and diversity of space actors and the emergence of new kinds of space systems, some of which involve very large constellations of satellites numbering in the thousands to tens of thousands, and also new kinds of space activities, such as on-orbit servicing, refueling, in-orbit assembly and manufacturing, active debris removal, and so on. With increasing congestion in the Earth’s orbital environment, these new kinds of space activities raise questions about the safety of space operations, particularly when contingency situations arise (such as conjunctions), or when spacecraft operate in close proximity to each other and there are no clear, widely accepted international standards or norms of behaviour. For this reason, it is important to identify and leverage best practices from government and industry to ensure safety of flight and safe rendezvous and proximity operations of spacecraft. These best practices may subsequently be codified as norms and standards for safe and responsible behaviour in space. This session is intended to be a forum to allow practitioners to discuss and socialize the types of norms, standards and behaviours that would be conducive to the safety of space operations.

E9.4-A6.10. Space carrying capacity assessment and allocation

Space in Earth’s orbit has a finite capacity and, due to the boosting of space activities, the space orbital system is slowly overloading. Assessing and managing orbital carrying capacity requires an international and interdisciplinary approach that embrace space engineering, policy, and economy. This session covers the theoretical approaches, computational tools, and techniques to measure space environment thresholds and overall carrying capacity of space. It will discuss proxies for monitoring boundaries for the maximum capacity, such as space debris metrics. The application of these metrics to space debris evolution scenarios and their role in the definition of debris mitigation guidelines will be discussed. This session will also address the legal and policy implications, including relevance to regulation and licensing, the needed steps to enforce the implementation of capacity thresholds evaluation, and correlation with space debris mitigation measures. Finally, economic incentives or payments systems for ensuring sustainable space activities will be discussed. This is a frontier topic in the space debris field: modelling and simulations of the debris environment are applied to the definition of indicators for the management of the space traffic and links with space law and policy. This topic is one example of Space Science Diplomacy.

E9.IP. Interactive Presentations - IAF SYMPOSIUM ON SECURITY, STABILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY OF SPACE ACTIVITIES

This session offers a unique opportunity to deliver your key messages in an interactive presentation on any of the subjects of Space Security addressed in the classic Sessions. The IP session is not restricted to any specific topic related to space law and invites authors to contribute presentations on any interesting, relevant and current space law issues. The presentation will be displayed on a digital screen in a dedicated location and available for view by all Congress attendees for the entire Congress week. In addition, one afternoon is dedicated exclusively for the attendees to view the Interactive Presentations, and the author will be assigned a specific ten minute slot to personally present the topic and interact with the attendees present. The Interactive Presentation may take advantage of all electronic display capabilities, such as: PowerPoint charts, embedded hot links, pictures, audio and video clips etc. An award will also be presented to the author of the best Interactive Presentation in the E Category at a special ceremony. An Abstract that follows the standard format must be submitted by the deadline for standard IAC abstracts.

E9.IPB. Interactive Presentations - IAF SYMPOSIUM ON SECURITY, STABILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY OF SPACE ACTIVITIES

E9.LBA. Late Breaking abstracts (LBA)