Insight – Celebrating 20 Years of Promoting Space Sustainability
Thursday, December 12, 2024
By Dr. Peter Martinez, Executive Director, Secure World Foundation
As 2024 comes to an end, we begin the 20th anniversary year of Secure World Foundation’s establishment as a private operating foundation dedicated to the secure, sustainable, and peaceful uses of outer space contributing to global stability and benefits on Earth, a concept that is now widely termed “space sustainability”, and which has featured prominently in the agenda just about every space gathering this year. But this concept took a long time to socialize and unpack in terms of our evolving understanding of what the term “space sustainability” encompasses and what it means.
Over the past twenty years, Secure World Foundation has been at the forefront of our evolving understanding of space sustainability. Initially thought of as only a concern for the most advanced space nations, there is now a growing understanding of the dangers of irresponsible behavior and armed conflict in space among a much wider group of State and non-State actors, and of the importance of strengthening the rule of law in outer space to ensure that space continues to be a domain for peaceful use and exploration by all nations. Wherever one looks across this expanding envelope of our evolving understanding of space sustainability, Secure World Foundation is there, raising awareness of issues, proposing new ideas, and facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogues.
The Foundation’s mission is now more relevant and urgent than ever. As I write these words in early December 2024, the population of active satellites in space passed the 10,800 mark and the growth in space activities shows no sign of abating. The orbital debris population also keeps rising, and with it, concerns that it is just a matter of time before we have a catastrophic collision that will start an unstoppable cascade of further debris-producing collisions.
Secure World Foundation is a trusted source of information that many space actors turn to for reliable factual information, expert analysis and impartial commentary on objects, developments and events in space. An example of this is our Global Counterspace Capabilities Assessment, this year in its 7th edition. The Counterspace report is widely cited and is regarded as the leading unclassified source of information on counterspace activities world-wide.
Given the current tense geopolitical climate, space security is a topic that continued to grow in salience in 2024. Once seen as an issue of concern to only the major space powers with military equities in orbit, space security is now understood to be an issue of concern to all countries, regardless of their degree of space capabilities. During the year, the Foundation supported several multilateral space security dialogues. One particular effort that I would like to highlight is our ongoing work to promote UN General Assembly resolution 77/41, which calls upon States to commit to refrain from conducting destructive debris-generating anti-satellite tests in space. As of December 2024, 38 countries have made this commitment. In addition, SWF has also led an international space industry statement in support of stopping such anti-satellite tests in orbit, which has been supported by 52 companies in 16 countries. We encourage more commercial space actors to add their voices to this industry initiative.
During the period under review, the Foundation produced a number of new resources. Key among these was the updating and publication of the 2nd edition SWF Handbook for New Actors in Space, which was first published in 2017. The second edition includes updates to international legal frameworks for space activities, emerging technologies shaping space logistics and sustainability, the growing role of cislunar space activities, and commercial human spaceflight safety. Other resources under development include a Guide for Responsible Investment in Space, which is intended to fill a need for information on the importance of stewardship of the space environment and the dangers for investors of not acting responsibly.
One of our core strengths is convening multi-stakeholder dialogues. During 2024, the Foundation continued to convene a large number of in-person and online dialogues. Many convenings were offered in a hybrid format, thus broadening the opportunities for participation. Our most significant event of the year was the 6th Summit for Space Sustainability, which was convened in Tokyo in July, in partnership with the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. The report of the Summit summarizes its main outcomes.
The year saw some significant shifts in staffing at SWF. In April, Krystal Azelton was promoted to Senior Director, Program Planning and Ian Christensen was promoted to Senior Director, Private Sector Programs. In early December, Matthew Eckford joined SWF as our first Director of Development. In addition, Emily Kunasek joined us as a Program Associate, Zilin Tang joined as the Partnerships and Contracts Manager, Damaris Thomas joined as a Communications Manager, and Raquel Toto joined as an Operations Associate.
Our Priorities for 2025
Looking forward, in 2025, the space community will continue to experience the multifaceted challenges to the sustainability of space activities that have been growing for a number of years, as well as confronting more novel challenges that may arise from close proximity operations in orbit, the deployment of very large constellations of satellites, and the worrying proliferation of counterspace activities. Secure World Foundation will continue to engage with other actors in the United States and internationally on issues affecting the safety, stability, security, and sustainability of outer space activities.
In 2025, we will continue our focus on the following four thematic areas:
1) Cooperative governance of space activities
SWF will contribute to the development and implementation of effective and inclusive governance mechanisms that move the world progressively toward the sustainable and peaceful uses of outer space. We will seek to build common understandings of concepts pertinent to space sustainability and space security.
2) Peace, stability, and safety in outer space
SWF will contribute to improving space security and maintaining space as an operationally safe, predictable, and stable domain through promoting inclusive, informed dialogue and greater transparency among space actors and through promoting policies and behaviors that enhance peace, stability, and safety. This will include a focus on promoting actions that create fertile ground for the further development of a rules-based order in space. In support of such dialogues, we will continue to issue our Global Counterspace Capabilities report in 2025. We will also continue to support multilateral dialogues on space security and encourage more countries to commit to moratoria on destructive ASAT missile testing in space.
3) Sustainable and prosperous uses of outer space
SWF will contribute to the development, promotion, and implementation of operational practices and policies that support the responsible, prosperous, and sustainable uses of outer space that benefit Earth and all its peoples. In 2025, we will focus on building connections among different regulatory communities and with the finance and insurance communities to promote responsible investment in space activities. We look forward to issuing a guidebook on responsible investment in the space sector.
4) Space activities in support of human and environmental security on Earth
SWF will contribute to the development of policies and practices aiming at more widespread and effective use of space assets and data to support improved human and environmental security.
In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our many valued partners and event sponsors, all our event participants, and our research collaborators for a very productive 2024. We wish you all a relaxing holiday season and we look forward to working with you in 2025 to promote the sustainable, safe, and peaceful long-term use of outer space in support of human and environmental security on Earth.
Executive Director
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