The proliferation of satellite technology has ushered in an era of opportunity and challenge for the existing international legal framework of space law. International regulatory bodies have looked to existing treaties governing space activities like the Outer Space Treaty, the Liability Convention, and the Registration Convention. In this new era, the challenges that have emerged cannot be enforced by the broad language of the treaties and outdated terms. For example, the deployment of large constellations of smaller satellites poses new challenges, like orbital debris damage and evasive responsibility, which the legal landscape for outer space must address. Space law stresses geopolitical considerations and strategic international legal frameworks that work to reduce the militarization of space and ensure that space is for all. This paper explores current treaties and challenges and proposes legal and policy solutions for the satellite industry’s responsible use of outer space.

A novel autonomous positioning approach based on X-ray pulsars is proposed in this paper. First, the principles of the pulsar–based measurement model and the inter-satellite range model in the autonomous positioning of satellite constellations are presented. The observability of the pulsar-based measurement model is then shown. Second, the autonomous positioning algorithms, including measurement models and orbital dynamics models, are formulated using an unscented Kalman filter to estimate the position vectors of satellites. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed measurement scheme compared with an inter-satellite range scheme is illustrated by numerical simulation. The results show that the proposed approach can keep the satellite state convergent, and achieve position accuracies of 2 m. The proposed scheme provides a promising approach for autonomous absolute positioning of constellation systems by using X-ray pulsars.