Space sustainability

Space sustainability refers to the ability to maintain the long-term viability and safety of space activities, including the responsible disposal of spacecraft and the mitigation of anthropogenic space debris. Achieving high rates of successful post-mission disposal of spacecraft and reducing the amount of space debris are critical parameters for ensuring space sustainability. Industry and policy approaches, such as those discussed at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, are necessary to address these challenges and achieve pragmatic outcomes.From: Space Debris Peril: Pathways to Opportunities [2020], Envisioning a sustainable future for space launches: a review of current research and policy [2023]

The Business of Human Space Exploration

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Published in Mark W. McElroy, The Space Industry of the Future, 2023

Mark W. McElroy

Similarly, the Secure World Foundation states in Space Sustainability: A Practical Guide: “Addressing the need for space sustainability now means we can prevent negative trends from becoming norms, and ensure that outer space can be used by all countries, not just technologically sophisticated ones.”

Envisioning a sustainable future for space launches: a review of current research and policy

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Published in Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 2023

Tyler F. M. Brown, Michele T. Bannister, Laura E. Revell

A sustainable approach to launch requires a systems-led approach that encompasses both the atmospheric and near-Earth environments. Sustainability in this sense is the ability to maintain a biosphere-protecting ozone layer, relative to anthropogenic forcings. As a planet-wide volume that is both travelled within and acted upon, and where the outcomes of humanity’s actions are inherently global in effect, the upper atmosphere shares a relative lack of recognition as a near-Earth spatial environment (Lawrence et al. 2022). However, this is shifting. For instance, anthropogenic space debris is a focus of space sustainability, and an area where both industry and policy approaches (eg at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space ) have converged on pragmatic outcomes (Palmroth et al. 2021). Similarly, launching through the atmosphere is action with purpose and intent. Thus, the aerospace industry needs to consider both atmospheric and near-Earth environments as a contiguous whole when quantifying impacts, eg in life cycle development analyses, and fully accounting for impacts both in launch and in demisability.

Space sustainability

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The Business of Human Space Exploration

Envisioning a sustainable future for space launches: a review of current research and policy