Neil Stevens, head of space, Price Forbes, looks at the year ahead for the rapidly developing space sector.

Watching a rocket take off is quite a spectacle. Seeing the same type of rocket launch flawlessly repeatedly is impressive. Watching the same rocket safely land again, well that’s just showing off. But catching a descending rocket with two protruding arms, known as ‘chopsticks’, from the same tower it was launched besides, well that just sounds like an elaborate circus act. SpaceX, the launch company founded by Elon Musk, has achieved all these milestones and the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle is the most successful launch vehicle ever. However, that is not its only merit.

In December 2015, the first stage of a Falcon 9 launcher successfully touched down at Landing Zone 1, Cape Canaveral. The second landed booster, B1021, was the first to fly again in March 2017, and was recovered a second time. What is the significance of this? The answer is that it meant that launch costs would reduce by a factor of 10. The cost to launch is always expressed in cost per kilogramme. What was $80k per kilogramme, suddenly reduced to $8k per kilogramme due to the ability to reuse launch equipment. This in turn lead to the democratisation of space and the New Space revolution.

Lowering the cost to access the space environment has spawned a deluge of new commercial applications from Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This is the orbit closest to the Earth ranging from anything above 200 kilometres up to 2000 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. Commercial satellites operating in LEO provide a range of services like Earth observation, environmental monitoring, broadband communications and in-orbit manufacturing. To provide global coverage of their services, operators need lots of satellites operating in lots of different orbits. This in turn means lots of rockets and lots of launches. The space consultancy Novaspace estimates that 43,000 small satellites (below 500kilogrammes) will be built and launched between 2026 and 2034.

For every satellite launched there is an environmental impact. Whilst rockets look like heavy polluters of the environment, their combined annual impact is broadly similar to the pollution occasioned by a single day’s operations at a major airport. However, the unseen harm is in LEO where space debris is rapidly accumulating. Items in LEO travel round the Earth at approximately 35,000 kilometres per hour, meaning that even the smallest fragments can cause damage to? / destroy? space assets. A single collision can cause multiples of further debris particles, which in turn can lead to a cascading effect or unstoppable chain reaction known as the Kessler Syndrome, generating exponentially more debris, and potentially rendering space unusable.

Insurance and finance are inextricably linked. Finance for new space missions mainly comes from venture capital firms. They quite obviously have a need to protect their investments, and insurance products are tailored to help them do so. However, the space insurance community not only needs to be reactive to new technology, it also needs to promote sustainability in space, to help ensure that the space environment remains available for future generations. The Earth Space Sustainability Initiative (ESSI) is an organisation that aims to achieve this objective and is aligned with the Astra Carta unveiled by His Majesty King Charles III in 2023.

Like the sun, the moon is an object that all of humanity can relate to. However, with one sixth of the gravity that we have on Earth, the Moon is susceptible to the creation of dust clouds from human exploration. These are clouds made from particles that are thrown up into the moon’s atmosphere as a result of commercial operations. It would be a shame if our bright full moons were shrouded by a commercially introduced fog.

With so many new types of space mission and the massive diversity of risk profiles, we need to find solutions through collaboration. Space insurers generally have space-based engineering backgrounds. Underwriters involved in insuring mining equipment or nuclear will similarly have experience in their subject fields. We need to find ways to partner subject matter expertise, to find solutions for the complex problems that face us. We also need to find ways to reduce the amount of debris in space.

Sustainability and responsibility are key watch words in the space insurance community. The next time you look at the moon, remind yourself that within the next five years, there will likely be full scale commercial robotic operations upon it. As a space insurance broker, it is incumbent upon me to acknowledge the fact that I have a duty of stewardship to protecting the space environment too.