In-orbit servicers get UK funds to help shape new regulations 

TAMPA, Fla. — The British government is funding a group of in-orbit servicing ventures to help develop ground rules for their planned rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO). 

The British subsidiaries of Japan-based Astroscale, Switzerland’s ClearSpace, and D-Orbit of Italy said Dec. 23 they jointly secured 690,000 British pounds ($869,000) from the U.K. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology for an initial “regulatory sandbox” phase.

“The total value is relatively small but I think it has the potential to really have a big, big impact on how the market develops for these services in the future,” said Andrew Faiola, Astroscale’s vice president and commercial director.

The first phase runs until the end of March and will conclude with a report conceptualizing space junk removal, satellite refueling, and other RPO missions alongside recommendations for how they could be regulated and licensed.

The consortium plans to collaborate with the British government and independent regulators, including the Civil Aviation Authority, to pinpoint key bottlenecks and address uncertainties in licensing novel RPO activities.

Faiola said a year-long second phase would likely follow to help flesh out a broad regulatory framework for RPO missions in partnership with the British government.

Regulating the future

While the U.K. permitted Astroscale to test debris removal capabilities in 2021, under the End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-demonstration (ELSA-D), Faiola said the country and others currently rely on a slow, ad hoc approach to license RPO missions.

“If we want to have a vibrant commercial end-of-life services business, for example, it can’t take us two years to license every mission,” he said. “It has to be able to happen in a more standardized way.”

Amid projections for thousands of satellites to be launched over the next five years, he said any regulator without a standardized approach could quickly get overwhelmed with licensing requests.

Whereas ELSA-D demonstrated capture and release capabilities between two U.K.-licensed spacecraft in low Earth orbit (LEO), future missions could also span multiple jurisdictions.

Faiola said the regulatory sandbox would conceptualize the steps needed to license international RPO activities, determining which country would be liable for a failure at various points of a mission.

“I know a lot of other administrations are looking at this kind of thing,” he said, and the work could provide “an example that others can look to in future and potentially replicate as well.”

Fortifying the market

A broad regulatory framework would also give potential investors and customers more certainty about the nascent market for in-orbit services. 

“Getting these types of regulatory licensing frameworks in place is key to unlocking the market,” he said.

According to Faiola, commercial companies are also well-placed to know what is needed to be successful in the market while keeping it competitive and sustainable.

“Even a country like the U.K. that does have some experience in this still is rather inexperienced,” he said, “and don’t really know what’s under the hood, so to speak, in terms of everything required to manage a mission like this.”

Growing competition

Meanwhile, Astroscale is separately pursuing U.K. approval for a mission to de-orbit a OneWeb broadband satellite in 2026, under the End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-Multiple (ELSA-M) program.

“These things do take some time,” Faiola said. “In future, hopefully they’ll take much less time, but we can’t wait around for the outcomes of this program to impact our ability to move forward on our launch cadence.”

Astroscale, which plans to begin commercially offering orbital debris-cleaning operations soon after the demonstration mission, has not yet announced customers for a future business that would also include in-orbit refueling services.

Northern Sky Research analysts have projected the in-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing market be worth 14 billion British pounds globally by 2031, amid rising demand for satellite maintenance, debris removal, and orbital sustainability solutions.

Astroscale is also competing with ClearSpace for a separate U.K. mission to remove two spacecraft from LEO in 2026 with a single servicer. In addition, the Swiss venture intends to remove an imaging satellite for the European Space Agency, but has not given a timeline after pivoting from plans to de-orbit part of a Vega rocket in 2026.

D-Orbit, a space logistics company, announced plans to enter the geostationary satellite servicing market in October. The Italian company’s first mission is slated for 2027-2028.

These companies follow Northrop Grumman’s SpaceLogistics subsidiary, which has helped demonstrate the viability of in-orbit servicing through ongoing life-extension services for two Intelsat spacecraft in geostationary orbit.

Related