In the last ten years, the number of satellites launched into space annually has multiplied twelve-fold, from 200 satellites in 2013 to more than 2 600 in 2023. This massive deployment of space infrastructure reflects its growing role in society, supporting critical societal functions such as telecommunications, energy grids, financial transactions and air transportation, as well as essential government services. It also reflects the democratisation of space activities, with a shift from mainly public to mainly commercial operators, and a remarkable geographic expansion, with currently more than 90 countries having operated a satellite in space.
The key driver of current growth is the rollout of multiple commercial constellations for satellite broadband in the low-earth orbital region, with proposed projects numbering hundreds of thousands of satellites. This could be a game changer for bridging the digital divide, providing broadband connectivity to hundreds of millions of people in under-served remote and sparsely populated regions.
But it also raises concerns about the environmental sustainability of space activities, including harmful effects on Earth’s atmosphere and the brightening of the night sky. The most pressing question is how this intensified activity will affect the access to space for future generations. Once in orbit, satellites occupy an increasingly limited and congested space, whose regulation and supervision are geopolitically, legally and technologically complex. Satellites and inhabited space stations face the growing threat of space debris, created from routine space operations, collisions and anti-satellite tests. If the number of debris collisions spins out of control and they become self-generating (the so-called Kessler’s Syndrome), certain orbits of high socio-economic value could eventually become unusable. Satellites in the most exposed orbits are mainly public and play a key role in weather and climate monitoring, science, disaster management and defence.
Adequately assessing the costs of space debris and the benefits of these space activities is a challenge because there may be large societal effects, harder to quantify than economic impacts. In 2019, the OECD Space Forum launched a project on the economics of space sustainability to address these issues, inviting researchers worldwide to assess, and where possible quantify, the effects generated by the accumulation of space debris, as well as their mitigation or potential remediation. Preliminary findings were published in 2022, in Earth’s Orbits at Risk: The Economics of Space Sustainability.
This follow-up publication provides valuable information to decision makers about the extent and nature of risks posed by space debris and offers new evidence on the value of space infrastructure for public and private end users. For the first time, guidance is also available on policy options for debris remediation and their possible socio-economic effects.