The junkyard in the sky

Last week, the world discovered just how crowded space is becoming when a defunct Russian Kosmos 2251 military satellite collided with the Iridium 33 satellite above Siberia. The Iridium satellite was a complete loss, leaving customers with temporary service problems. Since the incident, Iridium has announced that its in orbit spare will be used to replace the lost spacecraft and that its operational planning stage is underway to make this happen as soon as possible. Iridium only expect brief and occasional outages to affect their users. This was the first time a collision of two satellites has been recorded.

Although this situation was not as serious as it could be – the International Space Station is not expected to be affected due to its lower orbital position and the space shuttle is still expected to make its scheduled flight on 22 February – this re-opens the debate on space debris and the issues of safety that it raises. It also highlights the risks that operators take when placing a satellite into orbit. This is inevitably also going to push up insurance premiums as it is yet another risk that is posed to an operational spacecraft. The damage that even a speck of paint can do when travelling at high velocity at this altitude could be catastrophic. Voices have raised concerns for astronauts performing spacewalks – are they really safe?

The European Space Agency is about to hold the fifth European Conference on Space Debris from 30th March to 2nd April. Since 1957, there have been over 4,800 space launches. Perhaps unbelieveably, of the 13,200 trackable objects that circle the earth, less than 800 are operational spacecraft. The rest are objects that no longer serve any useful purpose. Spacecraft manufacturers and operators are being asked to design satellites that will mitigate the release of space debris as, if it is allowed to continue at such a rate, this could mean that space will be a dangerous and costly place to do business. Space debris has been a very real issue for some years now, and mankind must think about the potential creation of a high-speed landfill in the sky which is effectively what we are looking at.

So what does this mean for space insurance? It must have some sort of impact. Perhaps this most recent incident will re-write the book somewhat and mean that the way that insurance policies are compiled will change or incur rate hikes to reflect the potential problems that could happen. It will certainly focus the minds of insurance companies as this is unprecedented even that must now be taken into account. How long can we expect to wait before seeing another incident of this type? The experts don’t think we will be waiting longer than another ten years. Who will be liable to pay out for this particular collision? Russia has already distanced itself from the incident.

Satellite Evolution asked Philippe Montpert, Managing Director of Willis Inspace, a company dealing in space risk assessment and insurance, to comment. He told us: “With respect to the impact of the collision of Iridium and Kosmos on the insurance market, we do not think any impact will be seen at all on the usual launch insurance policies. The satellites were probably not insured or if insured the amount was pretty low. The situation may be slightly different with respect to Third Party Legal Liability insurance polices. Although here again, the owners of the satellites were not necessarily insured, the liability insurers may consider that the probability of collision has increased, which in turn may affect the premium rates of these coverages”.

Only when the debris has settled will the experts be able to say whether space operations could potentially be affected. If they are, for any operator, this can be disastrous. If a piece of debris happens to be orbiting in a slot selected for use by them, they may not be able to use it, resulting in negative economic impact.

After fifty years of satellite launches perhaps we have been lucky to have ‘got away’ with this problem for so long. However, now it is urgent that the issue of space debris is addressed in the attempt to prevent future collisions and to reduce the amount of junk in orbit instead of simply adding to it.

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