A United Nations official said there is an opportunity in the next 15 months to improve the way countries manage their space activities to address new challenges, from orbital debris to space resources. Speaking at the Secure World Foundation’s Space Resilience Summit on June 13, UN Deputy Secretary-General Guy Ryder said the organization is making efforts to address space diplomacy ahead of a UN conference called the Future Summit in September 2024. Consider the broad challenges facing the world.

“We have a window of opportunity over the next 15 months where we can accelerate space diplomacy and advance governance,” he said.

In May, the UN released a policy document on space governance, outlining the various issues it wants to address. Among them are coordination problems for the rapidly increasing number of space objects in Earth orbit in general, and more precisely – the increase in the number of debris.

“The most obvious and perhaps the most extraordinary change in recent years has been the large number of objects launched into space,” said Ryder. “I believe that the fact that more facilities have been put into service in the last 10 years than in the previous 50 years combined offers unlimited opportunities for development and management needs.”

These management needs center around the coordination of space traffic, with limited progress in addressing this problem on a global scale. This, he argued, threatens the security and stability of space, particularly exacerbated by the growth of debris from anti-satellite tests. Debris removal efforts are promising, he said, but without international norms for such activities, “the use of these technologies can be a source of both tension and conflict.”

Other issues of concern relate to human exploration of the Moon and the use of space resources. While examining the use of space resources, the Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) noted that there is still no agreement on how countries and companies can use these resources.

Ryder did not offer specific recommendations for solving these problems, but said that meetings of COPUOS and other organizations over the next 15 months offer an opportunity to develop proposals to solve them ahead of the Future Summit, where space will be one of many items on the agenda. .

He said the goal is to develop a single, unified governance structure that encompasses space traffic coordination, debris and resource management, and rules and regulations to prevent armed conflict in space. However, he said the UN would be open to separate frameworks for each issue “if this path is more likely to lead to results”.

Efforts to develop governance mechanisms on the high seas, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, offer a model for space, Ryder said. “All of this gives us confidence that deals made in the past are possible in the future, even in today’s admittedly challenging geopolitical climate.”

A conference hosted by Portugal in the spring of 2024 will form part of the coordination efforts leading to the Future Summit. Board member Hugo Andre Costa said this should help develop recommendations to be presented at the summit. During another conference of the Portuguese Space Agency.

Ahead of the Portugal conference, two virtual workshops will be held, one on technology in October and the other on politics in March 2024, to get ideas from governments, industry and academia. “It’s the only way we can prepare for the future,” he argued.

It is discussed whether COPUOS, which has more than 100 member countries and works with a consensus model that all countries should agree on, is suitable for the current space environment. “It’s a slow, frustrating but ultimately slow and steady process,” said Valda Vikmanis Keller, head of the U.S. Department of State’s Space Office, adding that open discussions remain important. “It’s the only way forward.”

“We need to continue the work that is being done at COPUOS,” Costa said, including “hard discussions” on these issues. “It’s through the hard conversations and hard discussions we’ll have that we’ll be able to keep the work of COPUOS and move forward.” Source