The orbital region around Earth is a resource of growing importance and strategic value, largely because cheap commercial launch systems have made access easier.

Future Horizons:

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5-yearhorizon

Increased pressure for global governance of space commons

The increased deployment of space weapons increases diplomatic efforts to find global agreement on limiting their use. These talks form part of a move towards global governance of space commons.

10-yearhorizon

In-orbit debris removal begins

Commercial space-debris removal makes Earth orbit safer than at any time since the dawn of the space age. But fears of a Kessler event dominate discussions about better coordination of activities in space.

25-yearhorizon

Space-traffic control gets green light

The world’s space-traffic control begins operating from Rwanda (a legacy of the Rwanda Space Agency’s long-standing role in space diplomacy). This real-time service coordinates on-demand launches to all destinations.

Humanity uses this environment as a viewing platform from which it can observe the Earth and the universe, as a thoroughfare for spacecraft and as a home for orbiting satellites. Satellites provide commercial services such as telecommunications and Earth observation, civic services such as climate studies, and weather-monitoring and military services, such as intelligence-gathering and both offensive and defensive operations.

Nation states have already begun to increase resources devoted to protecting, inspecting and destroying assets in space.⁶ The weaponisation of space is increasing tensions and raising the stakes for space-related diplomacy.⁷

Overcrowding is likely to become an important issue, particularly in areas of special interest, such as Lagrange points and low Earth orbit. The prospects of Kessler Syndrome, where a chain reaction of collisions increases debris levels exponentially, are rising. So de-orbiting protocols will become more important, as will efforts to clean up debris in high-occupancy orbits, The European Space Agency has plans to demonstrate the safe removal of large pieces of debris with its Clearspace-1 satellite,⁸

How this orbital hygiene will be organised is not clear but there are calls for a better form of space-traffic control to reduce the chance of accidents, for the planned clean-up of space debris and for an appropriate legal environment to resolve disputes.

Orbital region - Anticipation Scores

The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:

The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.

This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.