AE Seminar

Who's Following the Rules in Space? 
Assessing GEO Satellite Operators’ Compliance with ITU Orbital Assignments

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Thomas González Roberts

Postdoctoral Fellow | Sam Nunn School of International Affairs | Georgia Institute of Technology

Monday, March 24
11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Price Gilbert 1280 - Scholars Event Theater

About the Seminar: 
Satellite operators must undertake a years-long exercise of international coordination in order to protect their space-based assets from harmful interference in the radio-frequency spectrum. For operators in the geosynchronous orbital regime (GEO), this process—managed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations—ends with the assignment of protected space networks. These networks describe both portions of the radio-frequency spectrum and positions along the geostationary belt at which satellites must operate in order to avoid interference with other operations that may be happening nearby. But once space networks are assigned, how well do satellite operators comply with them? This presentation describes a method for assessing GEO satellite operators’ compliance with the physical component of ITU space networks using publicly available data. The behaviors of real, cataloged GEO satellites, are compared with data describing ITU space networks to determine whether satellites are operating near an active network assigned to their corresponding ITU administration. Compliance for a shortlist of satellites that perform relatively frequent longitudinal-shift maneuvers in GEO is assessed over a multi-year study period and discussed.

About the Speaker: 
Thomas González Roberts is a postdoctoral fellow in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Using tools from observational astronomy and computational astrodynamics, Roberts studies the behavior of Earth-orbiting satellites to understand how space actors—from superpowers to start-ups—engage with outer-space governance. His research interests include international coordination, sustainability, and security in space. Roberts’ work has been supported by the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation. Roberts has earned numerous recognitions, including the Prize for Open Data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Geneva Centre for Security Policy’s Prize for Innovation in Global Security, and a placement on Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30 in Science” list. He holds a PhD and SM in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT, an SM in technology and policy from MIT, and a BA in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University.