Space Sustainability Rating SSR Origin SSR Purpose Assure
Space Sustainability Rating (SSR) Origin - SSR Purpose “Assure the future viability of Earth orbit as a global commons to advance human welfare” The SSR has been conceptualized within the WEF Global Future Council on Space Technologies as a new, innovative way of addressing the orbital challenge by encouraging responsible behavior in space through increasing transparency of actors’ debris mitigation efforts designed to support long-term sustainability of the space environment Rationale - Space applications enable, accelerate and constructively shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but the orbital environment is a global commons at risk and collective action is becoming ever more difficult with a growing number of actors Function - SSR will use existing assessments to provide a comprehensive rating for sustainability of space missions - Based on industry-identified best practices and objective analysis, the SSR provides a structure for a voluntary, self-publicized rating (or through third party) of the degree to which operators adopt procedural, behavioral and systematic approaches taken to orbital missions (satellites and constellations) that support long-term sustainability of the orbital environment
Approach SSR will collect and summarize existing assessment tools across a wide variety of measurement categories for space sustainability. It will also identify gaps in categories that should be part of the rating tool but are not handled by existing organizations. An alignment of all the measurements will feed into the SSR to provide a comprehensive assessment of sustainability of space events / missions. Checklist “Checklist” of actions / behaviors that would benefit space sustainability based on the existing best practices (UN LTS, IADC, industry, etc). Actors should self-apply to undergo an evaluation of their mission through a questionnaire to establish a rating Entity validation & gap analysis Validate inputs (using outside data where possible); assess gaps in the data available; assess how to fill these gaps Expert judgement Add layer of intelligence / expert judgement to verify output Publication / recognition of sustainable behavior by recognized organization 2
Stakeholders SSR success depends on support of a number of key stakeholders Early stakeholders can be categorized into Champions and Advocates - Champions: Third parties in a position to and willing to trial SSR and support its development - Advocates: Organizations not in a position to trial SSR based on nature of their business, but support the initiative Key Stakeholders Governments Regulators Space Agencies Investors Academia Space Actors Non-Space Actors Industry Trade Associations NGOs Current Industry support - Champions - Airbus Defence and Space, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Maxar Technologies, and SES have confirmed their willingness to support the development of the Rating and specifically do the testing of the Beta version.
Impact SSR aims to act as an additional tool for the sector to help incentivize sustainable behavior on-orbit, providing the necessary instrument to support measurement and recognition of such behavior. SSR provides a comprehensive rating for sustainability of space missions bringing more transparency to the sector and highlighting and rewarding responsible actors. SSR has the potential to positively impact elements of the Space value chain – from manufacturers and insurers to launch providers and operators, as well as end customers. Over time, the SSR will extend to issues beyond debris (transportation, satellite servicing, property rights), and become more multi-stakeholder.
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