Roscosmos will strengthen control over private Earth satellites

This will help make space management more efficient.

The Roscosmos State Corporation plans to oblige Russian organizations and Russian citizens to provide more complete information about launched and launched artificial Earth satellites. Prepared by Space Activities Corporation bill submitted for public discussion on the portal of regulatory legal acts.

Today, everyone who launches satellites from the territory of the Russian Federation is obliged to inform Roscosmos about launch plans and the launch itself. Information about such space objects is entered into a single register maintained by the state corporation, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The information from the registry is then transmitted to the United Nations. Other space powers are doing the same. In the event of a satellite being removed from orbit, the state that launched it shall also inform the UN as soon as reasonably practicable. Information about space objects with which communication has been lost is also entered into the register and reported to the UN. This scheme makes it possible to coordinate efforts in space exploration by all participating powers.

In 2014, Roscosmos registered the first satellite not launched by the state. Since then, 104 such space objects have been added to the register, 69 of them are still operational. At first, most of these space objects were scientific and educational. In the last two years, the lion’s share of spacecraft has been created and launched exclusively in the interests of commercial organizations. Therefore, according to Roscosmos, it is necessary for organizations and citizens launching space objects to report not only about the start and end of flights, about the loss of communication with satellites, but also about the specified functional characteristics and their current technical condition of the devices. This will improve the efficiency of space activity management. Moreover, it will be necessary to report on all satellites launched by the Russians, no matter where on Earth these launches take place. This data will also be entered into the register.