12/11/2025 | Universität, English

The University of Cologne calls for traffic rules in space

Space is being commercialized and militarized. This makes rules for the shared use of space more important than ever.

The Institute of Air Law, Space Law and Cyber Law is celebrating its centenary at an exciting time: space is being commercialized and militarized. This makes it more important than ever to establish rules for the shared use of space.

By Robert Hahn

Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie were lucky. The three Chinese taikonauts managed to safely land their Shenzhou space capsule in the Chinese desert at the beginning of November 2020. This was preceded by days of anxiety for the space travellers, because shortly before docking with the space station, the capsule’s crew discovered damage to the outer shell. Hairline fractures had formed in the windows. This was likely due to a collision of the spacecraft with space debris. This made landing with the capsule impossible and the taikonauts had to transfer to the second docked capsule.

The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates that there are around 700,000 objects larger than one centimetre and 170 million objects larger than one millimetre orbiting the Earth. According to the Space Agency, around 29,000 objects larger than ten centimetres are said to be spinning around the Earth in orbit, in some cases at several times the speed of sound. The total mass of all objects orbiting the Earth is well over 6,300 tonnes.

Space debris is a serious problem

For Professor Dr Stephan Hobe from the Institute of Air Law, Space Law and Cyber Law, the incident with the Chinese space capsule is anything but surprising. The international law expert has been following the topic of space debris and its relevance to international law for years.

»The most valuable and important Earth orbits are completely clogged with space debris,« says Hobe. »It will be impossible to get rid of the stuff if none of the polluters take care of it. Now we have to make sure that the problem of space debris doesn't get any bigger.« But the spacefaring nations are on the wrong track, according to the institute’s director and international law expert: »The ESA says that we might be able to go on like this for another twenty years, then it’s over.« Then it would no longer be possible to launch satellites into orbit without them being immediately shot up by other objects.

An international voice from the University of Cologne

Space debris is just one of the many problem areas posed to international law in space. Since Elon Musk started the race for the civilian use of space, more and more companies have followed suit with their plans to commercially utilize or exploit the Earth’s orbit, the moon or even asteroids. In addition, near-Earth space is also being used more and more intensively by the major powers as a military base, for example for stationing satellites for observation purposes.

Stephan Hobe ist head of the Institute for Air Law, Space Law, and Cyber Law and holds the Chair of International Law, European Law, and European and International Economic Law. He is convinced that future space traffic needs a fixed set of rules governing, for example, liability in the event of collisions.

Tackling new problem areas has long been a tradition in Cologne. The institute looks back on a hundred years of history, which was celebrated in May of this year. Founded a century ago as the Institute for Aviation Law in Königsberg, it expanded its research areas to include space law in the early days of space travel in the 1950s. In 2015, the new field of cyber law was added to its research agenda in order to address the challenges of this new technology.

Rules for travelling in space

In recent decades, the institute has developed into an internationally relevant centre for research and teaching in the fields of air law, space law, and cyber law. It is the only one of its kind in Germany, and one of a select few comparable institutions worldwide, alongside similar institutes at Leiden University (Netherlands) and the University of Montreal (Canada). Stephan Hobe has led the institute since 2001. »We are at the spearhead of research in aviation and space law,« he says.

But the institute’s work is not limited to research. Hobe and his team also want to introduce practical solutions to problems into the debate. The symposium to mark the anniversary therefore concluded with the presentation of the Cologne Manual on Space Traffic Management. The international study is the result of a cooperation project with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and draws up a concept for regulating space traffic. Stephan Hobe explains: »We can expect to have a lot of civilian traffic in space in twenty or thirty years’ time. Even the transport of people and freight from one planet in the solar system to another is no longer fiction.« This raises the question of liability in the event of collisions in space. There is currently no legal framework to regulate the fault of the parties. »No one has the right of way in space. So, we believe we need transparent and binding rules for traffic sooner rather than later.«

An international regulatory authority

But introducing these rules with the agreement of all participating nations is proving difficult, says Hobe: »An agreement has been reached on aviation law. In space, it is much more difficult because the same rules are needed globally. In low, medium and geostationary orbit, there are no rules as to when and where someone can launch a satellite. We have spent two years researching and attempting to establish such rules.« Airspace belongs to the respective states and is monitored by them. But space belongs to no one; there is no responsible state. In order to actually implement such rules, Hobe believes that a central authority is needed to monitor all space flights.

Therefore, suggestions on how to implement the rules will also be discussed at the symposium. An international supervisory authority would be central to this. »For example, national air traffic control regulates air traffic. However, the same does not exist for rocket launches by spacefaring nations because, firstly, there are only about twenty launches worldwide per year and, secondly, it is not easy to determine who should be responsible for supervision. Unlike airspace, outer space is a common area shared by the states.« However, with the commercialization of space, there will now be significantly more than twenty to thirty launches per year. Completely new problems are also appearing on the horizon: »Satellite clusters are expected to provide Internet access. What happens if they collide? Then there will be new space debris, and that is currently the biggest problem,« says Stephan Hobe.

What about ‘under-the-table’ rules?

Environmental protection is just as difficult for countries in space as it is on Earth. Just as with environmental threats on Earth, there’s not much awareness of the problem, mainly because of the costs involved. So far, neither the USA, Russia nor China have shown any commitment to tackling the problem. »We hope that these rules will give countries an incentive to act, because ultimately, it’s in their own interest,« explains Stephan Hobe. The original idea was to regulate space debris removal through international treaties. One realistic option would be to draw up regulations in the form of guidelines. These would be non-binding. However, if enough states were to comply with them, they would become a kind of customary law in space. Either way, Hobe firmly believes that something must be done. Today’s lack of regulation makes the use of space dangerous for everyone.

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