The updated guidelines have been endorsed by more than two dozen organisations, and include the ‘rules of the road’ for avoiding collisions between space objects.
The report describes five classes of objects — non-manoeuvrable, minimally manoeuvrable, manoeuvrable, objects with automated collision avoidance and crewed spacecraft — and outlines rules they should follow to avoid a collision between two of them.
Generally, smaller, more manoeuvrable objects are the ones to move to avoid large, heavier objects. However, special coordination may be needed in cases of encounters between two spacecraft in the same category, or even if it is difficult to tell when a spacecraft has manoeuvred.
The SSC is an international organisation of satellite operators, aerospace companies and industry representatives. The organisation originally published a set of space best-practices in 2019, but it has now decided to update them given "the urgent need to protect space...