Rathnasabapathy, Minoo, Danielle Wood, Francesca Letizia, Stijn Lemmens, Moriba Jah, Simon Potter, Nikolai Khlystov et al. "Implementing the space sustainability rating: an innovative tool to foster long-term sustainability in orbit." In 72nd International Astronautical Congress, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 25–29 October. 2021.

Abstract

Given the growing number of government and commercial actors, and planned mega constellations, there is a critical need to consider implementing tools that will incentivise space actors to foster responsible behaviour and implement debris mitigation and remediation measures in order to ensure long-term sustainability of the space environment. Over the past two years, an international and transdisciplinary consortium consisting of the World Economic Forum, Space Enabled Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, European Space Agency, University of Texas at Austin, and BryceTech have been working on the design and development of the Space Sustainability Rating (SSR). The SSR is a tool to assess and recognise missions for sustainable and responsible operations that reduce the potential harm to the orbital environment and impact to other operators. Designed as a composite
indicator, the SSR consists of six modules highlighting key related decisions faced by space operators in all phases of the mission. These modules include the mission index to estimate the mission’s marginal contribution to overall orbital risk; (ii) collision avoidance capabilities; (iii) ability and willingness of the operator to share data on the mission data; (iv) the mission’s detectability, identification and tracking; (v) operator’s compliance with standards and regulations; and (vi) commitment to use or demonstration of use of on-orbit servicing and external services. This paper provides a third update of the design of the SSR, including an overview of the scoring methodology developed for each of the SSR modules. Prior to the SSR’s public launch, the consortium conducted alpha and beta tests of the rating with spacecraft operators in order to gain valuable feedback. This paper presents the methodology of the SSR alpha and beta tests, subsequent feedback, and lessons learnt that have been effectively implemented into the design of the SSR
to increase the usability of the rating system. In late 2020, the World Economic Forum announced a call for applications for the formal management and hosting of the SSR on a permanent basis. As the SSR transitions from design to implementation, this paper further presents the key criteria used to select the SSR administrative organisation (SSR Entity), chosen to work with the consortium on finalising the design of the SSR, and developing a business model to practically and sustainably executing the rating system.