Is space getting too crowded? Kevin Toner, vice president for MITRE’s Center for Government Effectiveness and Modernization, spoke with Breaking Defense recently about a forthcoming MITRE paper on “carrying capacity.” The paper examines adapting a MITRE-managed approach to keep aircraft from colliding to help facilitate international collaboration and standard-setting and ensure the safety and sustainability of space activities.
MITRE’s paper suggests that the key to enabling the maximum number of spacecraft to operate in low Earth orbit entails breaking the problem down into specific altitude bands and considering not just the overall number of satellites but the timing of when congestion occurs.
“Broadly, there are lots of definitions of carrying capacity. Some are a number: this is the max. I think one of the points we try to make in the paper is that there are other aspects, like time, for example. At what time and in which orbits comparatively do carrying capacities vary?” Toner said.