Satellite constellations: International legal and technical aspects

Over the past few years, the process of deploying mega-constellations of satellites by private companies has attracted increasing attention. The most famous satellite constellations include the American Starlink and the British One Web. Mega-constellations have a number of advantages – wide (global or local) coverage of the Earth's surface, complementarity of satellites in case of failure of one or more, as well as cost savings due to the possibility of simultaneous launch and subsequent deployment of several satellites of the constellation. Due to this fact other private and state operators also plan to deploy constellations that result in increasing the pressure on the situation in outer space. At the same time different types of constellations, which have been analyzed in the paper, can cause problems to the other satellites from the point of space traffic management view and interfere with astronomical research. The presented article shows that despite the deploying of mega-constellations being promising, this type of activity requires specialized international legal regulation on the basis of the future soft or hard law document. It should include the universal legal definition of a satellite constellation, setting rules in the registration of constellations, its safe operation till the end of the operational phase, etc. To achieve this goal the Legal Subcommittee of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space together with the ITU could become a good platform for discussion of legal and technical problems of constellations and mega-constellations. © 2022 IAA