The transition towards sustainable space exploration: the case of the space debris industry

Abstract

During the 20th-century, few crucial governments, such as Russia and the United States (US), led the space exploration; thus, all the activities, policies, and fundings were influenced by governmental interests. However, the closer to the 2000s we have become, the more actors have joined space exploration, sending more spacecraft of all types to orbit, often leaving debris behind without any international regulation on cleaning up. Before that, goals for the space field were mostly mission-oriented and, thus, based on centralized governance of individual nations (for instance, sending a man to the moon), but with the appearance of private companies and catching-up countries to participate in space exploration, the role of crucial players changed, and question on diversification has risen. Thus, the space industry has faced social and technical challenges that have to be responded to by a socio-technical transition. To understand how this transition is developing and how it could be done better, we focus on the space sector's socio-technical characteristics and evolution. Therefore, to perform the research, this study draws on transition and mission-oriented policy literature. To track the industry's development, we apply the Socio-Technical-Network-Analyses (STNA) framework, which allows us to depict the story-line. The analyzed database consisted of 289 articles discussing space debris from 2007 to 2019 to trace essential events affecting the industry. Specific policy recommendations and insights into legitimation processes in the space sector are provided.