http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/06/14/goodbye-envisat-legal-issues-threat-massive-space-debris/

Goodbye Envisat, or legal issues associated with the threat of a massive space debris
June 14, 2012 04:50 Rosa Rosanelli

An advanced remote sensing satellite designed to provide accurate data on the Earth environment, Envisat leaves the space community after 10 years of stunning images and continuous measurements that made possible more than 2500 scientific publications[1]. Launched by the European Space Agency in 2002 to ensure the continuity of data measurements with the European Remote Sensing Satellites ERS-1 and 2, the satellite abruptly stopped communicating last April, soon after its 10th birthday.

However, the natural “death” of Envisat, with its 8 tons weight and the size of a schoolbus, does not only mean the loss of a useful tool for measurements, that will have to be soon replaced by the Sentinels of GMES, but also the birth of a new massive “space debris” and the consequent growth of the population of “space junk” polluting Low Earth Orbits.

Destined to remain in a very populated orbit for about 150 years, posing repeated conjunction and collision hazards to other spacecrafts, the Envisat case triggers a series of legal and political issues and is particularly interesting from a Space Law point of view, as the latter is called to provide unambiguous solutions to a problem that seems to be more and more pressing.

While the debris population grows and the “Kessler syndrome” depicts scenarios that will inevitably push towards a more “sustainable” use of space, a binding legal framework for debris mitigation is indeed still lacking. The adoption of collision avoidance maneuvers or end-of-life measures are until now not imposed by any binding Treaty and are accordingly left to the goodwill of States. In such a context, and especially since such maneuvers require fuel, thus reducing the lifespan of space objects and causing add-up expenditure, the right to access space itself for all spacefaring countries results as unsecured.

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