In the hyper-connected world that looks forward to 5G and the Internet of Things as happy landing places for a future in which technology will accompany us in every moment of our day, it may seem a dystopian fantasy to imagine being struck by a piece of a satellite that falls from Space just as we leave a car – perhaps technological and connected – and we read on our smartphone the indication to reach our destination, which we could find looking up a few steps away from us.
If this image makes you smile, know that a few days ago the flight controllers of the US Space Command of NATO in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, did not laugh at all. Indeed, they sweated cold. From there, the United States keeps track of not only all satellites in orbit. but also the many debris and debris that revolve around the Earth without control. A few days earlier, on May 5, the Chinese space agency had launched its huge new Long March 5B rocket for the first time, the vehicle destined to carry astronauts – taikonauts in Mandarin – to the future Tiangong space station in the coming years.
The giant rocket, 60 meters high and 900 tons heavy, had taken off from the Wenchang base on the island of Hainan in southern China, and after three minutes its four side boosters had regularly released, falling back into the sea not far from the site. launch. The central stage of the rocket, 30 meters long with a diameter of 5, propelled by its two powerful engines had reached final orbit and successfully released the spaceship, which for this maiden flight was unmanned. At that point something happens.
It is unclear whether the rocket was intentionally placed in a low orbit so as to rapidly re-enter the atmosphere, or whether it malfunctioned; in fact it started to lose altitude without any more control and the Norad that was keeping it under observation declared the alert. On the morning of 11 May the rocket returned to the atmosphere with a trajectory that led it to fly over the US, New York in particular, before falling into the Atlantic. However, some debris – including a 12-meter-long tank pipeline – appears to have survived the reentry intact and fell in Côte d’Ivoire more than 2,000 kilometers after the estimated re-entry point, according to the 18th Squadron of the US Space Force.
On May 16, opening an online meeting of the NASA Advisory Committee, administrator Jim Bridenstine harshly commented on the incident. “Apparently it was a successful launch – he said – until we had information about an uncontrolled return of the rocket, a very dangerous situation, the first stage flew over population centers and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on the ocean. , but it could have been extremely dangerous. We were really lucky in the sense that it doesn’t seem to have hurt anyone ”. If chance – or rather orbital mechanics – had made the rocket re-enter a few minutes earlier, it would have fallen on American soil and perhaps, indeed certainly, today we would be reading very different news on the news.
And instead we read that, practically on the same day as the Nasa chief’s curse in Beijing, the Trump administration has raised the level of the trade confrontation with the Chinese Huawei and with a provision issued by the Commerce Department has significantly expanded the scope of the actions against the telecommunications giant. The move has been dubbed the nuclear option, because to cut Huawei out of the international market it goes beyond a red line that had never before been crossed. In practice, it is now forbidden for Huawei to manufacture microchips in all foundries that use American technology; a measure that risks giving the final blow to the Shenzhen giant.
Perhaps, imagining a direct link between this latest American move and the Chinese space rocket flying over Central Park crashing into the atmosphere might seem fanciful. Or, one could instead pragmatically think that what happens in Space almost always has consequences also on Earth, and that exploring the Cosmos is first of all a matter of geopolitics. But, beyond the terrestrial confrontation, there is a global safeguard issue that must be seriously addressed. The proliferation of satellite launches and constellations is having an unimaginable increase until a few years ago and, together with the uncontrolled increase of space “debris” (ie rockets and satellites that have run out of fuel), it can really cause a very dangerous combined effect for the terrestrial and space ecosystem.
Speaking of the incident that just occurred, the NASA administrator underlined the importance of the “Artemis” agreements, a series of principles and rules for space activities (here a focus) that NASA will ask future international partners to join the lunar exploration and commercial exploitation program. One of these principles would be the maintenance of a “safe and sustainable environment in space” following the guidelines described in the document for the mitigation of orbital debris and for the long-term sustainability of space activities approved by the United Nations in 2018. “These guidelines guide are of fundamental importance – said Bridenstine – defining for example the return of the first stages, which is why the Artemis agreements are important.
Two considerations, however, arise spontaneously: the “Artemis” agreements are US rules to be adhered to in order to participate in the exploration of the Moon and for the commercial exploitation of resources, while the guidelines of the United Nations are generic, albeit meritorious, indications of good conduct. In fact, if you read the official UN documentation on the matter, we find statements such as “the current United Nations treaties and principles on space provide a legal framework for the guidelines of States which, however, are voluntary and not legally binding under the law international; (…) the guidelines are formulated in the spirit of improving the practice of states and international organizations which should voluntarily take measures,
So, in summary, the “Artemis” agreements imply adherence to US strategy, while UN activities do not have the right level of political obligation for effective implementation. Space realpolitik tells us that no nation is immune from behaviors that are potentially harmful to humans and the environment.
Without bothering with the theory of the Anthropocene, according to which in the last two centuries the so-called industrial civilization would have changed the Planet – and in this case even the Space around it – to the point of having made it enter a new geological era, they must not, however, be neglect the fatal consequences of the exponential increase in space activities that we are witnessing.
An international forum with concrete legislative powers should be institutionalized to regulate activities in space and to impose preventive rules and subsequent controls on both agencies and private companies. In practice, it would be necessary to focus political efforts to implement multilateral negotiations on the model of the Start or Sort treaties in the military field extended to the USA, China, Russia, Europe, India and Japan. The space economy of the 21st century cannot be just a slogan to make the commercialization of space in the most disparate forms acceptable or familiar, but it should also include the creation of an international governance, a sort of space WTO, which adopts rules for a “safe & fair trade “. Before the unexpected happens.
