Space Economy Board Oversight: Satellite Liability, Orbital Debris and the Governance Gaps Nobody's Watching
Let me start with a boardroom that has nothing to do with rockets.
Say it's a mid-sized Indian company. Could be an agritech firm, a logistics player, a telecom operator, even a bank. Somewhere in the last two years it signed a deal for satellite data, or put money into a small satellite, or booked a ride-share launch through a partner. The paperwork went through legal. The finance team approved the spend. The board saw it as one line in a strategy deck.
And nobody asked the obvious question. If that satellite smashes into something, or falls somewhere it shouldn't, who pays?
I've come to think that's the real story of the space economy right now. Not the launches, not the billion-dollar valuations. It's the number of companies walking into the space economy without anyone at the top asking what they've signed up for.
You don't have to call yourself a space company to carry space risk. That's the bit most boards haven't caught up with yet.
Executive Summary
Space used to belong to governments. Now it's crowded with private companies, and the numbers are climbing fast. More satellites mean more orbital debris, more near-misses and more ways for something to go wrong. The trouble is that the main rules on satellite liability were written in 1972, for a world where only countries went to space. Those rules push liability onto governments, and governments, including India's, are now passing it down to the companies they license. So the risk lands on corporate balance sheets, often with patchy insurance and very little board oversight. This blog looks at where those space governance gaps sit and gives directors a simple way to check them.
Quick Answer:
What Is Space Economy Board Oversight?
Space economy board oversight means the board checking a company's exposure to satellite liability, orbital debris risk, insurance cover and space regulation whenever the company builds, launches, operates or depends on space assets. It covers companies that own satellites and also those that simply rely on them.
Put more bluntly: if a satellite matters to your business, it matters to your board.
Why Orbital Debris Is Now a Business Risk
Short answer? Because there's a lot more stuff up there, and it's multiplying on its own.
The numbers are bigger than most people think
ESA's Space Environment Report says around 40,000 objects are now tracked by space surveillance networks, and only about 11,000 of those are working satellites. The rest is junk. And that's just what we can track. ESA estimates there are more than 1.2 million pieces of orbital debris bigger than 1 cm, which is large enough to wreck a satellite on impact.
One centimetre. That's about the size of a shirt button. At orbital speeds, that's enough.
It keeps growing even if we stop launching
This is the part that surprised me most. According to ESA, even if nobody launched anything new, debris would keep increasing, because break-ups create new fragments faster than the atmosphere can pull old ones down. That runaway effect has a name, Kessler syndrome, and ESA now says active debris removal is needed to stop it getting worse.
And we are definitely not stopping
ESA's latest report counts more than 300 launches and 4,000 new payloads in 2025 alone, as several new large constellations started deploying. Think about what that means for any company with an asset in low Earth orbit. The road is getting busier, and the potholes aren't going anywhere.
Who Pays? Satellite Liability Explained Simply
Here's where it gets interesting for boards.
The 1972 rulebook
The main international rule on satellite liability is the 1972 Liability Convention. It works on two levels. If a space object causes damage on the ground or to an aircraft, the launching country is liable, full stop, no need to prove anyone was careless. If the damage happens up in space, say one satellite hitting another, then liability depends on proving fault.
Notice the word "country". The treaty talks about states, not companies. It was written for the Cold War, not for start-ups.
Only one claim, ever
In more than fifty years, the treaty has been used for a formal claim just once. In 1978 a Soviet nuclear-powered satellite, Cosmos 954, came down over northern Canada. Canada claimed about C6millionfortheclean-up,andtheUSSReventuallypaidC3 million in 1981, without formally admitting liability.
One claim, three years of negotiation, and half the money. Now imagine that process with thousands of private satellites involved. It isn't built for that.
The liability sandwich
This is the idea I want every director to hold onto. The treaty makes the country liable. The country then passes that liability down to the company it licenses. And the company tries to pass it on to insurers, suppliers and launch partners through contracts.
The board sits right in the middle of that sandwich. Usually without knowing it.
India is a live example. India already hands its international liability under the Liability Convention down to authorised private operators through IN-SPACe's 2024 norms, but insurance requirements are still worked out case by case. Meanwhile, the Space Activities Bill, which is meant to settle liability, insurance and penalties properly, hasn't been passed yet.
And the sector isn't waiting. The government told Parliament that 105 authorisations had been granted to private entities as of July 14, 2026. So Indian companies are operating in space ahead of a full space law. That's not a criticism of anyone. It's just a gap boards need to see clearly.
Boardroom Perspective: The Space Governance Gaps Boards Miss
Most boards don't ignore space governance on purpose. It just doesn't fit into the boxes they already have. It's not quite cyber, not quite ESG, not quite operations. So it falls between committees. From what I can see, four space governance gaps come up again and again.
The contract gap. Ask a board which contract actually carries the satellite liability, and you'll often get a pause. Is it the launch agreement? The satellite maker's contract? The licence conditions? If nobody can point to the clause, that's the first problem.
The insurance gap. Plenty of companies insure the launch, because that's the dramatic, risky bit. But a satellite may spend five, ten, fifteen years in orbit after that, and then it has to be retired safely. Is all of that covered? Often it isn't, or nobody's sure.
The end-of-life gap. When a company gets a licence, it usually promises the regulator a plan to get rid of the satellite at the end of its life. That promise might be made a decade before it needs to be kept. By then, the people who made it may have left. Who's watching the promise in the meantime?
The hidden dependency gap. This is the one that catches companies that don't own a single satellite. Banks rely on satellite timing signals. Farmers' advisory apps rely on imagery. Shipping and logistics rely on positioning. If a key satellite goes dark, the business feels it, even though space never appeared on the risk register.
There's also a regulatory tide coming from Europe. The proposed EU Space Act would bring in rules on debris, cybersecurity and environmental footprint, and it would apply to non-EU operators serving Europe too. It's still a proposal and is set to apply from 2030, but any Indian company with European customers should have it on the radar now, not in 2029.
The ORBIT Check: A Simple Framework for Board Oversight
Directors don't need to become rocket scientists to handle space governance. They need better questions. I use five, and the first letters happen to spell ORBIT, which makes them easy to remember in a meeting.
O – Obligations. What exactly have we promised regulators? Disposal plans, tracking commitments, licence conditions. Get them written down in one place, with an owner for each.
R – Reliance. Which parts of the business depend on satellites, including ones we don't own? Payments, timing, mapping, connectivity, data. If one of them fails for a week, what breaks?
B – Burn to the end. Is there enough fuel and a clear plan to retire the satellite safely? It sounds technical. It isn't. It's the space version of asking whether you've set money aside to shut down a plant properly.
I – Insurance. Is every phase covered, from launch to years in orbit to final disposal? And does the cover actually match what the contracts say we're liable for?
T – Tracking. Who tells the board about near-misses, anomalies or regulator letters, and how fast? If the answer is "the annual report", that's too slow.
Five questions, one page, reviewed once a year at minimum. That's not heavy. But it's a lot more board oversight than most companies in the space economy have today.
Real-World Example: Dish, EchoStar-7 and a Fuel Gauge That Became a Fine
If you want proof that a boring number can become a board issue, look at what happened to Dish Network in the US.
In October 2023, the US Federal Communications Commission issued its first-ever space debris fine. Dish paid $150,000 for failing to move its EchoStar-7 satellite to the proper disposal orbit, and it admitted liability as part of the settlement.
What went wrong? The plan agreed with the regulator was to push the satellite about 300 km above its working orbit at the end of its life. It only made it to 122 km, because it didn't have enough fuel left.
The fine itself was small for a company that size. That's not the point. Look at the timeline instead. Dish's disposal plan was approved by the FCC in 2012. The satellite ran short in 2022. That's ten years between the promise and the moment it had to be kept, and somewhere in those years, nobody kept a close enough eye on the fuel.
Part of the settlement required Dish to put a compliance plan in place, including better propellant tracking and better end-of-life disposal planning. In other words, the regulator forced the kind of oversight that should have been there from the start.
For me, that's the lesson for boards. The engineers weren't the only ones who missed it. A promise to a regulator is a governance commitment, and a fuel gauge turned out to be a governance metric.
FAQs on Space Economy Board Oversight
What is satellite liability?
Satellite liability is the legal responsibility to pay for damage caused by a satellite or other space object. Under the 1972 Liability Convention, the launching country is liable regardless of fault for damage on Earth or to aircraft, while damage in space depends on proving fault. Countries often pass this liability down to the companies they license.
Who is liable if a private satellite causes damage?
Internationally, the launching country. In practice, that country usually recovers the cost from the licensed operator, and the operator may then pass some of it on through insurance and contracts. In India, the 2024 IN-SPACe norms already shift that liability to authorised private operators.
Why should boards outside the space sector care?
Because plenty of ordinary businesses depend on satellites for timing, positioning, imagery or connectivity. A company can have serious exposure to the space economy without ever owning a satellite. If it relies on space, it has space risk.
When should a board put space risk on its agenda?
As soon as the company signs any contract involving a satellite, a launch or space-based data that the business can't easily do without. Space governance works best when it starts at the contract stage, not after a regulator letter or an outage.
Where are orbital debris risks highest?
In busy bands of low Earth orbit, where the big communication constellations fly. ESA says that in some heavily used altitude bands, active satellites and debris now exist in roughly similar numbers.
How can directors oversee space risk without being engineers?
By asking simple, repeatable questions, like the ORBIT Check: obligations, reliance, end-of-life fuel, insurance and tracking. Directors don't need to understand orbital mechanics. They need to know who owns each risk and how quickly bad news reaches them.
Does insurance cover damage from orbital debris?
Sometimes, partly. Cover depends on the policy, and many companies insure the launch more carefully than the years in orbit or the final disposal. Boards should check that the insurance actually lines up with the satellite liability the company has accepted in its licences and contracts.
Key Insights
You can carry space risk without being a space company. Dependency counts as exposure.
Satellite liability starts with countries but increasingly ends up with companies. Boards sit in the middle of that chain.
Orbital debris keeps growing even without new launches, so this risk won't fix itself.
Promises made to space regulators can outlive the people who made them. That's where oversight slips.
Key Takeaways
Map where your business touches the space economy, including the satellites you rely on but don't own.
Find the clause that carries your satellite liability, and check that insurance matches it for every phase.
Give every regulator promise, especially end-of-life plans, a named owner and a yearly review.
Use the ORBIT Check as a one-page board oversight tool for space risk.
As the space economy grows, watch India's Space Activities Bill and the proposed EU Space Act closely. Space governance is tightening, and it's better to be early.
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