Wen 丨 Chen Gen
With the rapid development of technology in space and related fields, human beings are opening up space at an unprecedented speed, and space space and resources are constantly being deeply developed and utilized. Under the rising trend of international strategic competition, space has become a new focus of the strategic game of major powers and a new chip of strategic checks and balances.
In order to compete for the commanding heights of strategic competition and grasp the initiative in space development, major countries in the world have adjusted their space strategies one after another, and promoted the international space strategic competition to show a new development trend. Whether it is the condemnation of the U.S. Space Command by the destruction of a long-scrapped Soviet spy satellite by a missile launched from russia from the ground last year, or the twice that the U.S. Musk SpaceX satellite forced the Chinese space station to take the initiative to avoid collisions to avoid collision risks, all hint at the upsurge of space competition.
The great power strategy and security game are extending and expanding from the traditional commons to space, and with the intensification of space competition, the problem of security risks in the disorder of space competition is becoming increasingly prominent. However, neither internationally nor by major powers has yet developed specific protective measures for space.
The competition in space is intensifying
In the past, the space capabilities of various countries and their position in international relations were the main factors determining the space pattern. Space capabilities determine the scope and depth of activities in the space field, and international status lays the political foundation in the space landscape. However, at present, space science and technology has increasingly become the foundation supporting space strategy, and space science and technology capabilities have gradually surpassed their international status and become a decisive factor in shaping the world's space competition pattern. Therefore, in order to seize the opportunity in the fierce space competition, countries have successively introduced ambitious space strategies, development plans, exploration concepts and policy measures, and investment in space science and technology research and development has increased.
The national space strategy announced by the US government highlights the "America First" principle, emphasizes the US space leadership and the hegemonic strategy of seeking peace with strength. In order to effectively implement the space strategy and ensure that the United States' "dominance in space is never questioned and threatened", the United States has reshaped the management system and functional system of the entire space field. Russia, Western European countries, Canada, Japan, and the Republic of Korea have also developed or issued space strategic plans named after policies, guidelines, frameworks, basic laws, and plans. This has directly triggered the rapid development of high-tech groups represented by space, information, new materials, new energy, etc. A new round of high and new technologies is poised to take off.
Globally, the United States is the country with the most powerful comprehensive space capabilities in the world today. As of December 2020, the global proportion of the number of satellites in orbit in the United States has exceeded 56%, ranking first in the world, more than the total number of satellites in orbit of all other countries in the world, 4.6 times that of China, which ranks second, and 10.7 times that of Russia, which ranks third. The United States is also the only country that has so far achieved a manned lunar landing, the only country to send man-made probes out of the solar system, and the only country to be equipped with anti-satellite weapons.
Even if it already has absolute superiority, the United States has not stopped the pace of space strategy. On December 20, 2019, the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 authorized the formation of the Independent Services Space Force, approving a budget of $32 million to create the Space Force headquarters. In the FY21 defense budget application, the Space Force's share increased significantly, at $15.4 billion.
In the United States, space technology is not an official patent, and even private companies can participate in space technology. At present, most of the major international manufacturers are located in the United States, including SpaceX, OneWeb, Teres, etc., and the main constellation plans include Starlink (Starlink), OneWeb, Iridium and so on.
As early as January 2015, SpaceX CEO Musk announced his intention to launch about 12,000 communication satellites into space orbit of the "Starlink" program, forming a global high-efficiency satellite communication network, providing cheap and fast broadband Internet services for consumers around the world. As of February 4, 2022, SpaceX has successfully launched 2,091 Starlink satellites, making SpaceX the company with the largest number of satellites in the world.
Of course, with the development of its own strength, China's attractiveness in the space field is also increasing. At present, China's aerospace has made great breakthroughs in rockets, manned spaceflight, satellites and deep space exploration.
In terms of rockets, from tandem to bundled, from one arrow and one satellite to one arrow and multiple stars, from launching satellites to launching manned spacecraft and space probes, China's rocket lineup is neat and complete. In terms of manned spaceflight, from the Shenzhou series to the Tiangong series, China has mastered the three basic technologies of manned spaceflight, such as manned space-to-earth round-trip, cabin departure activities, rendezvous and docking, and successfully launched the first set of space station modules.
In terms of satellites, China's satellite industry has partially entered the ranks of advanced countries, especially the Beidou satellite system. In 2020, the Beidou-3 system has been networked, providing services to the world, and is not limited to the traditional navigation functions of GPS satellites. In terms of lunar and deep space exploration, the "Chang'e-5" mission has achieved the first major breakthroughs in China's aerospace history, such as lunar surface sampling, lunar take-off, lunar orbit rendezvous and docking, and sample return, which has brought a successful end to the three-step walk of "orbiting, falling and returning" in the lunar exploration project.
The Mars rover "Tianwen-1" has arrived on Mars, and the Mars rover "Zhurong" has also successfully landed on the surface of Mars. The next step is to implement the Mars sampling and return mission in 2028, and will also implement the near-Earth asteroid sampling return and orbital detection of the main belt comet around 2025, and the Jupiter galaxy and interplanetary crossing exploration mission in 2029.
At present, the competition for the earth's resources has basically been saturated, and it is difficult for mankind to break out large-scale wars for the purpose of competing for territory, and space competition has increasingly become a new focus of the strategic game of major powers and a new chip of strategic checks and balances. Whoever takes the lead in space first will have the initiative in the fields of science and technology, economy, and military in the next era. In this context, China and the United States, as the two most powerful countries in the world, have become more and more competitive in the field of space.
Disorderly competition
Not all competition is orderly, especially in the unregulated space sector. With the intensification of strategic competition among major powers, the relationship between cooperation and competition in the space field has become increasingly complex.
On the one hand, as the competition and game between major powers in the field of space become more and more intense, their competition for the international space market has become more and more prominent, further promoting the formation of a situation of "competition above cooperation" and increasing the risk of space conflict.
For example, not long ago, on December 3, 2021, China submitted a note to the Secretary-General of the United Nations through the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), revealing the inside story of the US SpaceX's Starlink satellites that threatened the Chinese space station twice: once to find the orbital altitude, to approach a few days later, and once to rush directly towards the Chinese space station.
For the first time, the Starchain-1095 satellite, which was originally operating stably in an orbit with an average altitude of about 555 kilometers, began to de-orbit continuously in mid-May, and remained operational after reaching an altitude of 382 kilometers on June 24, just close to the 390-kilometer orbital altitude of the Chinese space station, which seriously violated the rules of the International Telecommunication Union and laid the foundation for disaster.
The second time, on October 21, another Starlink 2305 satellite maneuvered continuously again, crossing the orbital altitude of the Chinese space station, and rushed straight forward without pause, only four kilometers away from the space station. At the speed of the satellite 7 or 8 kilometers per second, this distance is less than a second to hit.
Moreover, the orbit and frequency band of satellites are a strategic resource, and low-orbit satellites are a network of thousands of small satellites that will not end their life at one time. When a small number of satellites are damaged or end of their lives, new satellites are launched to supplement the network, rather than letting go of the entire orbital resources. Low-orbit satellites are limited, and there are advantages and disadvantages, and the propagation loss varies from frequency band to band.
Internationally, satellite frequency and orbital resources are mainly a "first-come, first-served" method of preemptiveness, and orbital resources as an important threshold are bound to intensify the competition of major powers, so that geopolitics into outer space. This has also led to developed countries taking the lead in launching satellites, giving priority to their use, high-quality orbits and frequencies are quite crowded, and late-developing countries will be very passive, and the space for space development is getting smaller and smaller.
On the other hand, the number of human space explorations is increasing, and the resulting space junk is also increasing - the price of human disorderly competition has made space bear the pot, although in the short term has not caused risks and harm to human life, but in the long run, just as industrialization has caused harm to the earth's environment, human beings still have to pay for their own actions in the end.
Specifically, as a useless artificial object around the earth's trajectory, space garbage is a variety of artificial waste in addition to the spacecraft in operation, and the existing space garbage consists of three main parts: one is the artificial spacecraft that has reached the operating life or has been decommissioned but has not yet returned to the earth, as well as the debris generated by the collision between various artificial spacecraft and between natural celestial bodies and artificial spacecraft; the second is the debris scattered in the launch of the launch of the launch vehicle The third is the garbage generated by astronauts when they live in space, as well as items accidentally left behind in the process of completing space exploration missions.
As early as 2018, the total number of satellite debris and rocket debris in near-Earth space had reached 14,357, according to NASA's Office of Orbital Debris Program. The results of the research results of Donald Kessler, an American space debris research expert, according to the current growth rate of space debris, if no measures are taken, in another 70 years or so, the amount of debris in space will reach the threshold of the debris chain impact effect, after which near-Earth space will be unusable.
It has been proven that dense and massive debris, rocket launch debris, and space debris can pose a direct or potential threat to the operation of spacecraft and further human exploration of space. A large number of space junk floats in disorder, breaking the original ecological balance of the space environment, once the bottom line of self-regulation of the space environment is broken, it is likely that there will be an irreparable space environment crisis.
How does earth law govern beyond the heavens?
In fact, life and production on Earth today have a relationship with outer space, after all, the most common use of satellites is a variety of communications, which may be radio and television, transferring telephones or the Internet, but also transferring data such as Internet of Things devices, or smart devices in people's homes. Everyone uses positioning and navigation, and a lot of the information people have about climate change comes from satellites because it allows for a full range of observations of the Earth.
Outer space has become a part of human life and part of the sustainable development of human social infrastructure. Outer space has a significant impact on life on Earth. However, neither internationally nor among the major powers has been developed for the specific protection of space. The current basic statute on space exploration goes back to the Outer Space Treaty drafted by the United Nations in 1967, which, although adopted by most States, is essentially a relic of the Cold War.
In addition, since the middle of the 20th century, countries have successively begun space exploration activities, and have promulgated five international treaties, including the 1963 Declaration of Legal Principles for the Exploration and Use of Outer Space Activities of States, the 1973 Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space, and the 1979 Moon Treaty, which together establish the basic rules for space activities of countries. However, limited by the legislative time and the level of science and technology at that time, the content of the treaty mainly focuses on the denuclearization and demilitarized use of outer space, and has less to do with issues such as the development and commercial utilization of space resources.
Judging from the current space exploration rules, international treaties are still the basis of governance, the content is generally more vague, the members have limitations, the implementation is insufficient, only a few international law rules are clarified, the key factors in the current development of space resources are not clarified; and there is no binding force on countries that have not joined the treaty. At the same time, the current multilateral governance mechanism for space resource development is still incomplete and clear, the relevant rules need to be clarified urgently, and space powers and non-governmental organizations are preparing for the renewal and development of the mechanism.
At the same time, the pace of unilateral governance of space powers has developed rapidly, such as the United States and Luxembourg have passed unilateral legislation to protect the ownership of space resources by their own enterprises or individuals. However, in the legislative work of the Space Commission, some countries have raised strong objections to unilateral legislation, arguing that the practices of the two countries violate international law. They pointed out that unilateral legislation violates the principle of "universal humanity sharing space resources"; the use of the "first-come, first-served" principle to determine the ownership of resources infringes on the interests of late-developing countries; and the space powers have not provided international assistance and technological diffusion.
Today, divisions remain. In 2017, the Space Commission added relevant topics, hoping that all countries will actively participate in the legislative process, build a multilateral governance framework, and discuss and formulate rules for the development of space resources. Undoubtedly, in order to keep tensions to a minimum and maintain harmony in space, human society needs to make a clear international governance framework for the development of space resources.
Space should not be a place of conflict, but rather a platform for international cooperation. Just like the regulations on Earth, the way space is used is constantly evolving, and the rules that govern the use of space should be constantly updated. As space law lawyer Michelle Hanlon put it: "The current law on norms of space behavior is not sufficient, and more specific rules of international law need to be developed." ”
For example, the minimum distance between satellites should be defined so that there is no doubt about the intention of other satellites to approach our satellites. Because when you get too close, it will be difficult to tell whether the other party is locking the position for the purpose of detection and surveillance or for the purpose of launching an attack. Figure out the rules by which people use space every day, so that in the event of a crisis, something abnormal can be detected in time.
Humans originated on earth, but they don't stop at earth. With the development of space technology, there will be more and more participants in space exploration. When human beings break through the diaphragm of the atmosphere and run to the universe, they should be more cautious about facing another piece of the sky. Rules are meant to protect, and to protect space is to protect humanity itself.