NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy: Ensuring the Long-Term Viability of Space Activities

As humanity’s presence in space continues to grow, the importance of ensuring the long-term sustainability of space activities has become increasingly evident. NASA, as a global leader in space exploration and technology development, has recognized the need to address the mounting challenges posed by the rapidly changing space environment. In response, the agency has developed a comprehensive Space Sustainability Strategy, focusing on advancements that align with NASA’s mission as a science and technology organization.

The strategy aims to increase NASA’s role as a global leader in space sustainability by providing science and technology leadership, supporting equitable access to space, and ensuring that NASA’s missions and operations maintain or enhance space sustainability. The strategy identifies four key domains where space sustainability is crucial: Earth’s orbit, the Earth, cislunar space (including the Lagrange points and the lunar surface), and deep space (including other celestial bodies).

The Importance of Space Sustainability

Space sustainability, as defined by NASA, is the ability to maintain the conduct of space activities indefinitely into the future in a manner that is safe, peaceful, and responsible, meeting the needs of present generations while preserving the outer space environment for future activities and limiting harm to terrestrial life. The rapid increase in operational satellites, particularly in low Earth orbit (LEO), has made space more crowded, contributing to increased debris and potential risks to spacecraft and human spaceflight missions.

The risks posed by the continual increase in micrometeoroids and orbital debris are a driving threat to human spaceflight, including the International Space Station and the Artemis Campaign, as well as critical science and robotic missions in Earth’s orbit and missions to other planets in the solar system. Addressing space sustainability is therefore critical to NASA’s ability to continue conducting its missions safely and effectively.

NASA’s Key Responsibilities

To increase its role as a global leader in space sustainability, NASA has identified three key responsibilities:

1. Provide science and technology leadership in the United States and the global space community on space sustainability topics.
2. Support equitable access to and use of space now and in the future.
3. Ensure that NASA’s missions and operations, including those undertaken with non-NASA entities, maintain or enhance space sustainability.

By fulfilling these responsibilities, NASA aims to lead the global space community towards a more sustainable future in space, protecting the ability to use space for the benefit of all.

Domains of Space Sustainability

NASA has identified four domains in which space sustainability is crucial: Earth’s orbit, the Earth, cislunar space (including the Lagrange points and the lunar surface), and deep space (including other celestial bodies). The challenges related to space sustainability may differ depending on the domain, and NASA commits to releasing Agency-wide strategies for each domain. Volume 1 of NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy focuses on sustainability in Earth’s orbit.

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Earth’s orbit presents highly visible challenges to space sustainability, especially in LEO. This domain includes topics such as space situational awareness, space traffic coordination, space environment awareness, orbital debris management, and spacecraft servicing. The strategy emphasizes the health and safety of human spaceflight and the ability to mitigate the creation of new debris, implement operational procedures for spacecraft to avoid collisions, protect missions from damage due to debris strikes, limit reentry casualty risks, characterize populations of untracked debris, and clean up debris through various remediation methods.

Challenges to Sustainability in Earth’s Orbit

NASA has identified five main challenges that inhibit rapid action regarding space sustainability in Earth’s orbit:

1. The lack of a single, widely accepted framework for space sustainability. The presence of differing frameworks leads to confusion when trying to identify space sustainability problems and solutions.
2. Insufficient metrics and modeling to support holistic frameworks. Existing models do not holistically account for connections among tracked and untracked orbital debris, the growing number and diversity of active spacecraft, how and when such spacecraft maneuver, other hazards posed by the highly variable space environment, and methods to reduce the risks of space operations.
3. Uncertainties in the space environment and space operations as the main driver of risks to space sustainability. Operators, mission planners, and policymakers base mission-critical decisions on information and assumptions that are often limited, incomplete, or inconsistent. A challenge is to determine how much various uncertainties must be reduced to enable breakthroughs in the space community’s understanding and actions related to space sustainability.
4. Potential tension between space sustainability and other mission interests. To meet cost and schedule constraints, organizations prioritize actions that are essential to mission success. Actions taken to improve sustainability may be perceived as detracting from missions.
5. The global nature of space sustainability, requiring a coordinated, multilateral response. The U.S. Government is in the early stages of coordinating unified policies and guidance that support space sustainability. There are still gaps in the policies and guidance.

Addressing these challenges is crucial to making meaningful progress towards space sustainability. NASA’s strategy outlines specific goals and objectives to tackle each of these challenges head-on.

Goals and Objectives

To address the challenges to sustainability in Earth’s orbit, NASA has established six goals, each with specific objectives, to pursue space sustainability:

1. Develop a framework for assessing space sustainability at NASA. This involves defining a framework, metrics, and models for assessing sustainability, determining tolerable and desirable levels of risk associated with the future operational environment, and annually publishing NASA’s effect on the sustainability of space.
2. Prioritize the most efficient ways to minimize uncertainties about orbital debris and operations in the space environment. This includes identifying opportunities for breakthrough improvements in sensing and predicting the operating environment, investigating new approaches to operating in space, identifying cost-effective methods to reduce debris creation, and developing prioritized approaches to managing risks posed by existing debris.
3. Lower barriers to space sustainability through developing and transferring technology. NASA will invest in technologies that support key elements of space sustainability, focusing on capabilities needed for NASA’s missions and those that other U.S. space operators need, provided there is a clear transition plan. This involves continuing investments in early-stage orbital debris management, identifying opportunities to increase investments in space situational awareness, space traffic coordination, and space environmental understanding, and identifying potential transition partners and supporting demonstrations of debris-related technology.
4. Update or develop policies that provide incentives to support space sustainability. NASA will develop or update policies that enhance space sustainability, including updating NASA’s policies and standards to reflect the results of the framework developed in Goal 1, updating NASA’s policy related to debris remediation, supporting economic and policy research related to space sustainability, and advancing consideration of international issues related to remediating orbital debris.
5. Continue and improve coordination and collaboration outside of NASA. NASA will continue its strong leadership role domestically and internationally, identifying opportunities to better share and receive information from academic institutions, industry, interagency partners, and the international space community. This involves continuing collaboration with interagency partners on space sustainability, engaging with communities that prioritize space sustainability, improving the sharing of best practices, procedures, models, data, and tools with the international space community, and improving NASA’s ability to incorporate technical advancements made by the broader space community.
6. Improve NASA’s internal organization to support space sustainability. NASA will design and implement an entity to focus on day-to-day coordination of the Agency’s space sustainability efforts. This entity will create accountability to ensure that NASA meets its aspirations for space sustainability, will enable Agency-level prioritization of relevant efforts and budgets, and will allow NASA to maintain a consistent voice when speaking about space sustainability.

Implementing the Strategy

NASA will form an implementation team to address goals 1–5 by assessing current programs and lines of effort, providing a prioritized action plan, and cross-referencing this action plan with the National Orbital Debris Implementation Plan. The objective for Goal 6 should be addressed within a year of the strategy’s approval to enhance collaboration across the Agency and provide continued leadership for space sustainability.

The implementation team will identify and define studies and early-stage science and technology development that support the strategy. Later-stage development and technology demonstrations will be approved and budgeted through established processes. The team will also act as an impartial advocate for additional resourcing to meet requirements for consolidated sustainability programs and projects.

In terms of policy, the implementation team will be the focal point for coordinating internal and external space sustainability policy, working with subject matter experts and the principal Agency liaison to develop and coordinate national security and national space policy. The team will facilitate consensus on space sustainability issues for the Agency, primarily through the Space Environment Sustainability Advisory Board (SESAB). Technical authorities will retain responsibility for procedural requirements and technical standards for flight programs and projects.

Conclusion

NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy represents a significant step forward in addressing the challenges posed by the rapidly evolving space environment. By focusing on science and technology leadership, supporting equitable access to space, and ensuring sustainable missions and operations, NASA aims to lead the global space community towards a more sustainable future in space.

The successful implementation of this strategy will require collaboration and coordination with domestic and international partners, as well as a commitment to continuous improvement and adaptation as the space environment continues to change. NASA’s implementation team will play a crucial role in assessing current programs, providing a prioritized action plan, and ensuring accountability across the Agency.

As humanity continues to expand its presence in space, the importance of space sustainability cannot be overstated. NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy provides a roadmap for addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by this new era of space exploration and utilization. By working together to implement this strategy, NASA and its partners can ensure that the benefits of space are available to all, now and for generations to come.