SpaceTRC / Space Age / Space law, economy and debris
Who owns space? Its rules, money and junk.
More than 17,000 active satellites and over 1.5 million centimetre-sized debris fragments circle Earth. The space economy has reached 686 billion dollars. This growth is governed by a 1967 treaty and newer rules added in recent years. This file covers the legal, economic and environmental side of space.
- Active satellites
- 17,09926 October 2026 · J. McDowell
- Objects larger than 10 cm
- 68,450ESA, October 2026
- Fragments of 1–10 cm
- ≈1.5 millionESA MASTER-8 model
- Global space economy
- $686 billion2025 · Space Foundation
01 / Law
Five UN treaties and newer rules
Space law rests on five treaties drafted in the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). Türkiye has been a COPUOS member since 1977 and is party to all five.
| Treaty | Year | What it says | Parties | Türkiye |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outer Space Treaty | 1967 | Space and celestial bodies are not subject to national sovereignty; no weapons of mass destruction in space; states are responsible for their companies’ activities. | 118 | Party (1968) |
| Rescue Agreement | 1968 | Astronauts must be assisted and fallen spacecraft returned to their owners. | 100 | Party |
| Liability Convention | 1972 | The launching state is liable for damage its spacecraft causes on Earth. | 100 | Party |
| Registration Convention | 1975 | Launched objects are reported to and registered with the UN. | 76 | Party (2006) |
| Moon Agreement | 1979 | The Moon’s resources are the “common heritage of mankind”. | 17 | Party (2012) |
Party counts from UNOOSA’s 1 January 2025 table; the Outer Space Treaty figure is as of October 2025. None of the major spacefaring powers is party to the Moon Agreement.
Artemis Accords
US-led principles that allow resource use on the Moon and beyond and define “safety zones”. As of 19 October 2026 there are 77 signatories; Türkiye signed as the 71st on 31 August 2026. More: Return to the Moon.
Spectrum and orbital slots
The International Telecommunication Union calls radio frequencies and satellite orbits “limited natural resources”. Satellites are filed with the ITU before use; most slots follow “first come, first served”, while some are reserved by plans that give every country equitable access.
Who owns space mining?
The Outer Space Treaty bans sovereignty but does not clearly address ownership of extracted resources. The US, Luxembourg, the UAE and Japan have passed national laws letting companies own what they extract, an approach that remains internationally debated.
02 / Economy
A 686-billion-dollar space economy
According to the Space Foundation report published in July 2026, the global space economy grew 12% in 2025 to 686 billion dollars. About four-fifths comes from commercial activity.
The US share
The US government spent 78.3 billion dollars in 2025, 57% of all government space spending worldwide.
Defence weighs more
Novaspace estimates that 54% of 2025 government space spending (73.5 billion dollars) went to defence.
Outlook for 2035
A 2024 World Economic Forum and McKinsey estimate puts the space economy at up to 1.8 trillion dollars by 2035, growing roughly twice as fast as the global economy.
03 / Space debris
What is in orbit?
About 7,370 launches since 1957 have placed more than 28,000 satellites in orbit. Some 19,400 are still in space, but only about 15,800 work. The rest are dead satellites, rocket stages and fragments from more than 660 break-up events.
Logarithmic scale. Source: ESA Space Environment Statistics, 23 October 2026 (MASTER-8 model).
Fear of a collision cascade
The scenario described in 1978 by NASA scientists Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais: past a certain density, collisions create more fragments and fragments cause more collisions, potentially making some orbits unusable.
Break-ups continue
In August 2024 a Chinese rocket stage broke into hundreds of pieces at 700–800 km. In October 2024 the Intelsat 33e satellite disintegrated in geostationary orbit. In September 2026 the break-up of a 1988 US reconnaissance satellite was confirmed.
Crowding is accelerating
More than 300 launches in 2025 put over 4,000 new satellites in orbit, about 10 a day. At least three large objects re-enter and burn up every day.
04 / Solutions
Rules and clean-up missions
| Measure | Who | What it requires |
|---|---|---|
| 25-year rule | IADC (international agencies) | Spacecraft in low orbit should re-enter within 25 years of mission end. |
| 5-year rule | US FCC (2022) | US-licensed low-orbit satellites must deorbit within five years of mission end; ESA now applies a 5-year standard too. |
| Zero Debris Charter | ESA (2023) | A “zero debris” goal by 2030; over 205 organisations from 34 countries had signed by end-2025. |
| ClearSpace-1 | ESA | Will capture and deorbit the PROBA-1 satellite; launch expected in 2028. |
| ADRAS-J2 and ELSA-M | Astroscale | Missions to capture a rocket stage and a retired OneWeb satellite, both on Isar Aerospace rockets. |