Lecture Series Book on ICT Policy and Regulations Space Sustainability and Its Impact on Indonesia's Digital Economy and Connectivity

This book is developed to serve as a reference for Cybersecurity Risk Management and Regulations course at postgraduate level, and for Basic Public Policy and Regulations course as part of undergraduate elective subjects. This book is published for scholars and policy enthusiasts, who are interested in the issues of space sustainability, as well as digital economy and connectivity.

he new space economy is characterized by the emergence of private-commercial actors as alternatives for space launching, as well as private actors building and owning large deployments of space infrastructure, namely satellite constellations. The resulting lower costs of space launches has triggered a significant increase in the deployment of satellite networks in the closest orbit to earth (Low Earth Orbit, or LEO). Some of these commercial actors are vertically integrated – owning the launching capability as well working on the build of very space infrastructure (satellite fleets). There are around 5,000 operational satellites in orbit, of which around 4,000 operate from LEO. New LEO satellites constellations are being deployed in the order of tens of thousands, and estimates suggest that the number of LEO satellites could reach more than 100,000 by 2030.

LEO, as a globally shared resource, is limited and subject to the same susceptibilities as other limited natural resources face: unregulated competition that leads to market failure or market distortion, and unmeasured exploitation that would lead to negative externalities. For LEO ecosystem, this would endanger the usefulness of our space ecosystem for commercial, government and scientific purposes. Some of these effects would include the risks of monopolies arising from vertical integration and unregulated commercial landscape in LEO, space debris from failed or inappropriately decommissioned LEO networks, debris causing degradation to safety of flight, and the foreclosure of the LEO resource to the global community due to “first movers” taking up all of the prime orbital space in LEO.