Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the UCD researchers on their work on EIRSAT-1. They have been working on the satellite for approximately five years. I wish them the best of luck with the launch and its operation. This will be Ireland's first satellite and it is unlikely to be the last. There are no international regulations for the operation of satellites in orbit. There is no traffic management system or pollution regulations. It is up to each nation to implement its own policies and hold itself accountable. We will never put as many satellites into orbit as the US, China or Russia but this does not mean we do not have a responsibility to legislate for the handful that we may launch.

These treaties were landmark conventions in the space race era. They were written at a time when activity in space was minuscule as opposed to what it is now. Space is becoming congested. Ever since the first days of the space age there has been more rubbish in orbit than active satellites. As environmental consciousness has grown over recent decades we do not seem to have come around to viewing the space around Earth's orbit as part of our environment. No one owns it and no one takes responsibility. There are approximately 5,000 active satellites orbiting Earth. This has increased from 2,000 in late 2018. All have gone into the most congested level of our surroundings at the low Earth orbit.

Sharing the space with these satellites are the remains of approximately 10,000 satellites and rockets. Over time they are all disintegrating, colliding and being purposely exploded into debris. Given the speed at which debris and space craft travel, any impact can be catastrophic. Travelling at more than 15,000 mph, micrometre-size particles can chip windows or dent solar cells. Millimetre-size paint flakes can destroy satellite cameras or puncture the spacesuits of astronauts. A 1 cm bolt has the explosive force of a hand grenade on impact. Anything smaller than 10 cm is untraceable. It is impossible to predict when they might impact an active space project. It is estimated there are more than 100 million pieces of untraceable debris. It is essential that we are incredibly careful about what we choose to send into orbit. All of these items will stay in orbit for hundreds or even thousands of years. Had the Romans launched a satellite into a 750-mile orbit, it would only fall back to earth around now.

There is no doubt there is a problem. The private company SpaceX plans to launch thousands more satellites and it is not alone. OneWeb, a communications company, has announced plans to launch its own constellation of 300,000 satellites. Last August, researchers in the United Kingdom reported that SpaceX satellites have been involved in approximately half of all collision avoidance moves in low orbit. In the near future, they predict this could rise to nine in every ten.

Given the range of new private actors and geopolitical tensions, any binding international treaty is probably well out of sight. Treaties will only get us so far. Domestic legislation will be needed. If something falls from space and can be identified as ours having been launched from Ireland, we have a legal responsibility. We should not lose sight of this. For the limited amount of space activity in which we take part, we need to have leadership. Our activity is very limited. I suggest to further and higher education institutes seeking to replicate the work of UCD, which I again applaud, that the area of space decluttering is where we should focus some of our efforts. It does not look like it is happening at a global level. It is only when it becomes a real issue and we see something catastrophic that we will realise we have allowed this to get to a point where it causes real problems.

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