As danger grows for commercial firms in space, so does call for norms: Aerospace

WASHINGTON — In an ever-more militarized and tense space environment, risks to commercial firms of becoming collateral damage, or being deliberately targeted, in a conflict are ballooning — raising corporate stakes in national and international efforts to build norms for military space activities, a new Aerospace Corporation study finds.

“There are a lot of potential situations in which commercial actors are gonna get entangled with security challenges in crisis or conflict,” Robin Dickey, author of the study at Aerospace’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy, told Breaking Defense. “There are numerous potential norms that could help to mitigate that challenge.”

Therefore, she explained, the goal of the study is to raise awareness among both commercial space players and government officials of the fact that industry has interests at stake and a potential role to play in developing security-related space norms.

The study, “Commercial Normentum: Space Security Challenges, Commercial Actors, and Norms of Behavior” released today, thus sets out a number of potential norms that would serve both commercial and military interests, and evaluates how commercial actors could contribute to their development and implementation.