Last week, a collision was narrowly avoided between two satellites. Following this event, the question of a code of the road for space arises to avoid future accidents.
After the code of the road and the maritime code, it is urgent to define a code of the spatial circulation because the traffic of satellites becomes infernal and it was even close to the drama last week.
An accident that would have been historic being the first collision between two satellites. On the one hand, Aeolus of the European Space Agency (responsible for observing the earth) and on the other a Starlink model 44 (belonging to the Space X company of Elon Musk, the South African inventor of the Tesla ).
What happened in fact?
The scene is strangely similar to a quarrel between two motorists who refuse to yield the passage by inviting themselves "it's not for me to move, move your car yourself!" except that it was happening via email. When the European agency understood that the American would not move his spacecraft a meter, when the risk of shock was real, she made an in-extremity maneuver by switching on his engines and spending precious fuel so to avoid the collision.
No victim would have been deplored but the European agency, furious after this incident, took the opportunity to urgently claim a code of the road for space. Today, above our heads and without really paying attention, it's the big traffic jam. And it will be worse and worse!
That is, there is more and more traffic?
Today, there are about 2,000 operational satellites in Earth orbit that is to say in a huge area between 300 to 550 kilometers of the earth or 36,000 kilometers for the farthest. They revolve around our planet at a speed of 10 km / second, ie 36,000 km / h anyway. With the geolocation of objects, the increased surveillance of our planet is the inflation of satellites. A French user uses an average of 40 satellites per day. It is estimated that 7,500 of them will be in orbit by 2025, not counting those of Elon Musk who absolutely wants to make his launch pad profitable by selling out all the stops to make the Internet universal. Its "mega constellation" could count 12,000 satellites by 2020, which means that the space will look like the sun's highway in the middle of July.
What will this code of space look like?
Coercive rules must be established. Who should yield the passage in case of risk of crash? Should we prioritize right as at our crossroads? The first priority installed? Should we build lights in orbit or stop? Should we create gendarmes to verbalize the speeders of space, and even tow trucks in case of collision? Everything is to invent! Space has become more dangerous than a small country road.