Proposal of space debris indemnification fund

Throughout our space development and utilization activities since 1957, we have left many man-made objects in space, what is called, space debris. Situation of space debris is getting worse as the number of space debris increases, leading to the collisions between an operational spacecraft and space debris. More seriously, a massive object may fall down and hit the ground causing large-scale damage and/or fatalities. This implies that space debris may bring a serious and growing problem and the recognition of necessity and emergency of space debris treatment is increasing in space community. Technically, several countermeasures have been proposed such as the Active Debris Removal (ADR) which is one of the feasible solutions to remedy space environment immediately. In order to realize the countermeasure in action, this paper makes an attempt to solve issues from the system engineering point of view including business and legal aspects by referring the IOPCF for an oil spill risk by a huge-tanker.