 Discussions of responsible behavior and space threats have traditionally been dominated by the major space powers and perceived as something that the commercial sector need not weigh in on. However, given that space is a shared domain, everyone, space actors and non-space actors like governments, industry and civil society has a role to play in the predictability, stability and security of the space environment. The security of space has been a concern since the beginning of the space age. It is more acute now because more than 100 countries have satellites in orbit and there's a rising dependency on space capabilities for such critical needs as economic development, environmental monitoring and disaster management. Although space security has historically perceived as only relevant to the geopolitical superpowers, nearly every person on this planet uses space data in some way, shape or form and thus benefits from a predictable space environment with reliable access to that information. I would be remiss, my boss would be very upset with me if I had to take this opportunity to mention several secure world foundation publications that are relevant to this topic that are free and available on our website. The first is our global counter space capabilities and open-source assessment. It looks at five different sorts of counter space capabilities for 11 countries. It is available in English and I'm happy to report the executive summary has been translated into all six U.N. languages. Arabic, Chinese, French, English, Russian and Spanish. Another publication demonstrates why we should all care about space security issues. Secure World Foundation's anti-salic test debris infographic which illustrates how the force of impact can disperse debris to much higher altitudes than when the test took place. This is relevant because the higher the orbit, the longer the lifespan the debris has, which in turn gives it more time to threaten other spacecraft and satellites in orbit. Since the 1960s, destructive anti-salate tests have created 6,850 pieces of trackable debris. Of that, nearly 3,500 pieces of debris are still in orbit. All countries should be concerned about space debris from anti-salate tests. As debris is agnostic in terms of whose satellites it threatens, it does not matter if the country who held the test is a geopolitical ally or not. It is relevant to the commercial space sector as the instability produced by a breakdown in space security can pose a direct threat to future economic activity in Earth orbit, raising the costs of current and future enterprises there in an already unpredictable and expensive environment. I would like now to turn to our poll. So we asked who should have an opinion on and participate in space security discussions. And we had several options, geopolitical superpowers, states with their own satellites, commercial space actors, states without their own satellites, and then E all the above. I admit I may have had a position I wanted people to take and it looks like people were agreeing, but there was a trick question. It was E all the above in my opinion. And hopefully this session will leave you with that same opinion as well. So with that, you're not here to listen to me. You're here to listen to our fantastic panelists. Let me introduce them. We have Unready Dematio, who's a counselor of the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the permanent mission of Nigeria disarmament. We have Marisa Sharm, the special advisor on space, strategic joint staff, Department of National Defense and Canadian Armed Forces. We have Tim McClay, CSO and US General Manager, Clear Space. We have Anirud Sharma, who's a co-founder and CEO, Digintara. And then finally, we have Michael Spees, our political affairs officer, the nation's office for disarmament affairs. So for everyone here and online, questions will be submitted via the Q&A feature on the Huvah app. And I will look through and try and select some as much as we can to get through in the time that we have allotted. But as you may probably not be surprised to hear, I have a lot to say in this matter and I have questions I've set up for my panelists so we'll start with those. First, Tim, can you talk a little bit about what is Clear Space C as some of the biggest destabilizing activities in space security and stability? Yeah, well, Victoria, thank you very much for the invitation to participate today. And thank you to Secure World Foundation for putting together this event. You guys always put on a fantastic event and you just hung right in on the most relevant and urgent topic. So thank you for that. I think the easiest answer to give to that is ASAD testing. That's sort of the obvious answer. But I want to take a few minutes to kind of peel that back a little bit and see what lies underneath. The way I would break this down is to look at the long term trends and then look at perturbing functions on top of that. So I first studied orbital debris in 1987. So it was a long time ago. It was back when, honestly, orbital debris was really just an academic topic. There was no money for research. There was barely a session at an aerospace conference and it wasn't on operators' minds. You fast forward 35 years to today and it is at the forefront of every operator's mind. It's one of the largest threats to the International Space Station and it's a very real national security concern, both for the U.S. and our allies. So I think our activity as a whole over those 35 years and beyond and even before that, rather than singling out a particular kind of activity, represents a destabilizing or a threat to safety in space. That growth of debris over time has been largely unchecked. On top of this, I think that militarization of space represents the largest potential perturbing function or forcing function on instability. There is a lot of discussion about war and preparation for war in space. Most of it is about U.S. and China and the tensions that are building, but other states are not out of that realm of possibility and even non-state actors. The fact is it's not that hard to mess up space. I think that in fact, our reliance and the focus that we put on our reliance on space applications and space assets is one of the reasons that we tout the importance of space sustainability, but it also puts a big target on us. The greatest equalizer in an asymmetric conflict is mutual destruction. So a lesser state without a whole lot of space assets might look at just creating a mess as a really attractive option. And to be clear, space is a really different war fighting domain. Physically, if you shoot down an airplane, all the debris falls to the ground. You sweep it up and you know if it goes. You destroy a ship and it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Well, if you obliterate a satellite, that shrapnel stays in orbit for years, potentially decades, even centuries, and it creates a threat to national security, sustainability and safety for a very long time. So I think the takeaway is that the Leo environment in particular is a really fragile one. The only natural cleansing mechanism is atmospheric drag and it is less and less effective exponentially with altitude. And that's all you've got. So if we were to have a full scale armed conflict in space, the Leo environment or the Geo environment would not recover, period, not in our lifetimes, not in the lifetimes of our grandchildren. And so I think that is really the militarization buildup is the principal threat that I see the stability and safety. Thank you, Tim. Well, let's go on to Anirudh. Anirudh, how can the deliberate creation of debris complicate the SSA picture? First of all, thank you for inviting me here with the I am Secure Work Foundation. And I think most of the importance of creating deliberate debris has been covered by Tim here when he mentioned about the ASAT tests and few things that have been done for militarizing space. So there are a lot of nations that have performed certain ASAT tests, which has created a lot of debris. And we've seen this happening from the start of the space race, right? Like before, ASATs or all the militarization of space activities, space was initially perceived that there'll be no commercial space actors working and there were just governments launching in more and more satellites. So at this point in time, we have commercial interest in space and space is very important for everyone. I mean, in our daily life space is really important. Talking from the space situation awareness perspective, the entire value chain of SSA, I mean, the technical part of it, the way you determine an object and space and then catalog, it's all about understanding what's happening in space or knowing where each and every object is. It is not just important for us to know the position, but also to understand and characterize each of these objects. Now, when the debris is created deliberately, what makes it difficult for us or an SSA company or even any organization working on SSA is to understand the difference between the debris that is already there or created by the natural cause and the deliberate creation of debris. There is always a confusion between tracking and identifying such debris particles, which increases the collision risk. The main reason to that is, it takes a while for us to even distinguish where this object is or which object is this, whether this is an object that is a breakup of another satellite or was it cost you to a SAT test kind of a, I mean, or a kinetic warfare. So that makes it difficult for us to even catalog an object and it is an entire value chain. When you talk about space situational awareness starting from initial orbit determination, you have to start with understanding if this object should be cataloged and then orbit determination. It takes a while for any agency to even understand how much of impact that these tests have created. So at the end, it is not in the best interest even for commercial agencies or governments or even military agencies because at the end of the day, it's at, I mean, the space is at stake. So what I'd like to say is it not only increases the collision risk at the same time tracking and identification of these debris particles created will be very difficult and it takes some time for us to know the impact. And we've seen the past, a lot of these debris that has been created by the SAT tests, be it China and Russia, US. So we have seen the remains of it. I mean, Russia has around 35% of debris, I mean, they contribute 35% of debris particles in the orbit in around 800, 700 to 800 kilometer. And it's still that it takes a lot of time to get down. Like Tim said, gave an example of the aviation sector. In the aviation sector, when there is a collision, it falls down. But in space, it still remains. And these remains just increase and we've heard this term called Kessler syndrome, which just multiplies. We've not seen such instance yet, but it is prone to happen looking at how the space is getting crowded or congested by a lot of commercial actors and we have mega constellations right now. So in the best interest of the economy and the sustainability of the orbit, it is, I mean, we've taken active steps already to ensure that there are no more ASAT tests or kinetic warfare in the orbit. Thank you. Michael, so the UN is undergoing a process called an open ended working group. That's been happening in Geneva for the past year or so. For this crowd, could you explain a little bit about what it is, what it's trying to do, and then talk about, you know, why is it focusing on identifying responsible behavior in space? Yeah, thank you so much, Victoria, and to the Secura World Foundation for inviting the UN to be part of this conversation also to the very excellent framing for this session. So I think it's important to, you know, acknowledge that the sustainability aspect has a security dimension as well, and the work that we've been doing on the security dimensions are often a bit less well known. Most of the discussions take place in Geneva and the specialized disarmament bodies of the UN and these are traditionally a bit less accessible to a variety of stakeholders. But this is a trend that is changing and I'll speak to that a little bit later. So, you know, building on the comments from, you know, fellow co-panelists, you know, the threats that we see in the space domain are accelerating as more countries are developing dedicated anti-satellite capabilities and we see this increasing growth in technologies that are regarded as dual youth both by states and commercial entities. So in the face of these trends, so the UN has been talking about outer space security in the context of strategic risk and preventing an arms race for several decades now, but in light of these trends, there's a really new urgence to actually seeing progress. So traditionally, the disarmament toolkit has a lot of different mechanisms, their restrictions, limitations, export controls that traditionally focus on discrete categories of weapon systems or technologies. Now, in the space domain, there's a lot of challenges that have to be overcome. One is sort of the dual-use nature of these objects, the nature of the space domain that makes it very difficult to understand the functions of capabilities of a satellite in orbit or the use of terrestrial military systems that can be used in the NIT satellite function. So to sort of take stock of these trends and to really look at how to accelerate the development of solutions, we've had for the past couple of years a process, an open-ended working group, open-ended in the UN speak means it's open to all member states to participate that has been looking to develop norms, rules and principles of responsible state behavior. And so this has been designed to give a bit more of a flexible approach to allow all states to come and provide their own threat perceptions and to have a discussion around what collection of various measures can be adopted to address those threats. So in terms of, you know, where we see this sort of work going and I'll speak more to this a little bit later on, you know, it's important to note that no state opposes the possible development of new law going forward, but there's also this recognition that law takes a long time to develop. And we heard some of the panels yesterday that there are also risk of being too overly prescriptive or too rigid in legal mechanisms. But, you know, the bright side is that if we look at the historical development of norms in the UN system that can strain weapons or even govern the peaceful uses of outer space, you know, these can be preceded by the development of norms of principles that we can all identify and that we can try to see how they work, how we can verify more stringent rules and into the future. And so this is this is where we see is unique within the approach of the open-ended working group. So this working group started its work last year, it will have its final session in August of this year. And, you know, we're hoping that it will produce, you know, a good and strong set of consensus recommendations that can be the basis for, you know, future work and the elaboration of more ambitious measures in the future. Thank you. Thank you. So, I'm ready. You and I met at the open-ended working group and I was really impressed by the prominent role the you in Nigeria have played in the discussions there. And so maybe you could talk a little bit about why has Nigeria been so involved in these discussions on space security and stability? And if you're comfortable, you know, why do emerging space countries, what do they get out of being involved in these conversations? Thank you, Victoria, and also thank you to the CKL World Foundation for making it possible for me to be here today and to partake in this very, very timely summit on space. I would say that a country like Nigeria that engages in discussions on space systems, for us, we would base our involvement in these discussions on three key principles, first of which would be, obviously, the prevention of an ounce race in outer space. And then the other two would be the issue of ensuring that the use of space is carried out on equal basis and also equitable basis. Now, we are cognizant of the fact that states have sovereign rights to develop space capabilities for different reasons, including weaponized reasons. But for Nigeria, who engages in the use of space systems for strictly peaceful uses, we believe that we deserve some sort of non-usage assurances of these weaponized capabilities in order for us to be able to engage in our space activities for peaceful uses and be free from interference from states who engage in space activities for other reasons. For example, Nigeria has four space assets to support critical services, public-oriented services, including telecoms, cyber security, and the likes. You get the picture. Strictly peaceful uses. We don't have any intentions to develop weaponized space capabilities. And so that is why in the OEWG, like Michael mentioned, we take a prominent role in involving ourselves in this discussion in order to advocate for binding measures to be established to regulate space activities, basically. And also the issue of ASAR testing. Imagine a country like Nigeria being impacted by space debris. It would take a whole lot for us to begin to come together to probably launch another space asset into orbit, what have you. It would be difficult for a country like Nigeria. That is why we are saying that we want to see space being utilized on an equitable and equal basis and states who do not intend to get into that other focus should be free to be able to enjoy the benefits of space. Also speaking on the issue of the prevention of arms racing out of space, I'm sure the issue of nuclear proliferation is not new to any one of us here. So Nigeria views the situation as we might begin to foresee a situation where the nuclear arms race could extend to the space domain. I mean, we might see a situation where states begin to develop capabilities to place nuclear weapons in and out of space and also deploy them from there due to the vantage point, you know, space has over us. You know, so we feel like all these aspects are areas that we need to really come together to address. And I would now segue to the other part of your question for states like Nigeria who engage in these discussions. What do we want to benefit? Now, we want to leverage on the inclusivity perspective of the OEWG process to lend our voices, critical voices to, you know, setting the tone for which the measures that we hopefully are looking forward to emanate from the OEWG process to cater to our needs as well. And we are talking about measures that will, you know, most likely incorporate non-usage assurances and delights. You can call them confidence-building measures or, you know, in the nuclear terms, negative security assurances, you know, something along those lines. I will now round up by saying that also we also would leverage on the OEWG process, you know, to share our views and concerns on what we term or what we would consider as irresponsible behaviors in outer space. You know, which is very critical to our space-related activities. Well, to conclude, I would just say that space in itself has become an incontrovertible subject that we all, public-private partnerships, true public-private partnerships, must take strident steps to address holistically in order to avoid issues of conflicts in outer space and then ultimately prevent another arms race in outer space. Thank you. Thank you, Nredi. So, Marie, it's kind of a similar question for you. I know a lot of people made out of associate Canada with security issues for space. Every Canadian I know will tell me, hey, do you know that we built the arm for the space station? But they don't talk about the security side. So can you talk a little bit about, you know, what are concerns does Canada have about space security and stability? Why is Canada so, again, a leader in the OEWG process and discussions? And what does your country hope to get out of the conversation there? Thank you. Bonjour tout le monde. So, yeah, you're right. This topic is usually led by foreign affairs department. So national defense is supporting the foreign affairs department and we are very committed to the responsible behaviors use of space. It's in our defense policy since 2017. So we are committed to that as well. So from our perspective, the answer to the question is that we cannot dissociate the stability and the security on Earth from the stability and the security in space. So those two are directly linked. And history has shown that Canada as other nations rely heavily on the stability for our prosperity, for the economy, for the way of life really. So similarly, we rely on space assets for that same things. And we believe that it's important that we maintain the space stability and also the stability on Earth at the same times. But unfortunately, as we've discussed today, space is not immune from conflict and the geopolitical situation on Earth create a situation where conflict could potentially expand to or begin in space. And what we are concerned about the most is that the harmful is about the potentially harmful impacts that military activities could have on the sustainability of space activities, as it was discussed today a lot, but also on critical infrastructures on Earth and ultimately on civilian population. So just as an example, we've seen a lot of proliferation of GPS jamming system. They are currently being used widely by the Russians, for example, in Ukraine. And from a military perspective, we are going to be able to adapt to that and we are learning on how to operate in a denied environment for GPS. But those systems also have impact on civilian aviation, on the civilian use of the GPS system in the region and also could have impact on orbit assets as well that are not involved at all in the conflict. So the effort at the UN as part of the OEWG, as it was discussed, we are looking at developing those responsible behaviors. And it's... We also can make a good translation with this situation on Earth here. So unheard in our societies. We have those well-recognized standards of what is responsible, what could be perceived as rude, what could be perceived as provocative. But on space, we don't have those norms. And when people on Earth follow those norms, it helps us all to live together and be in a more... We have a sense of certainty that is provided by that and of security that allows us to progress all together. So in outer space, as we lack that well-defined set of norm to get activities, we believe that it can lead to more instability and that could lead to reaction, to certain action that would be escalatory or destabilizing. So we need to clarify what those norms are to ensure that the actors in space, all the actor can operate together. So this is why Canada is very involved in that consultative process. And we are happy as well that it's a very inclusive process so every nation can join and as well we've seen contribution from other organizations such as the Secure World Foundation. So I just want to answer directly the question of this panel. So why it's also the problem for commercial and civil actors and why commercial actors and civil actors should care about the ongoing discussion of the OEWG on responsible behavior in general and also how they can contribute to advancing the development of those norms. So why should you care? So unfortunately as it was discussed, non-military assets are also put at threat by the instability in space and they are not immune from what could happen to them due to conflicts or in time of peace or in time of conflict. But we all benefit from, so we all benefit from more stability in security in space. And also without the informed contribution of the civil and commercial sectors, it's risky that the norms that will be defined will not be defined in a way that can be adapted to all type of space activities. So we don't want the norm to be developed only for governmental or military activities but we need the contribution of the other sectors as well. So how can you contribute to the discussion and also I wanted to know that because most of the on-orbit assets now are not military or governmental assets, the contribution of commercial and civil actors are so important because if we want the behaviors that are agreed to become actual norms and potentially legally binding, they need to be followed by all the actors in space. So yeah, I encourage the commercial and civil actors to continue getting informed on the threat and also to continue express their views and we've seen a lot of contribution already by for example, commercial consortium or other organizations such as your organization that publish letters or their opinion and I have to say that those positions are read and considered as national country, as country develop their national position on the issue. So I think that's the threat out of them and as we are building the Canadian position, we take them into account for sure. So yeah, and one additional point I wanted to make as well is that I think one of the great contribution of the OEWG is that it helps define what are the threats and what are the perception of those threats and this is something that I believe commercial and civil community can benefit from as well. It's the same for the Aldi report that I just put forward because when you understand more the threat, then you can, when you want to collaborate with national defense and with the armed force for a space project, when you understand the concern and then you can develop your system in a way that will be reassuring for the military actors and we are looking into integrating more and more services in our operation. So knowing that your business or your capability is adapted and resilient is really, really reassuring and enables further cooperation between all the actors as well. Thank you, Marisa. Everyone's voice matters. That's a good point to underline. I agree. Again, you are ahead of a SSA company and you probably have a lot of thoughts on how SSA can help verify actions on orbit and underline the overall security and sustainability space. What suggestions would you have for that? I mean first, let's just understand how SSA is done or why SSA is required for us to even verify what's happening in the orbit or understand the knowledge of what's happening in the orbit or the objects. So there are three major steps or I would say three basic steps in space situation awareness. The first, I mean the first part is the infrastructure capability for us to be able to even understand what's happening in the orbit on the infrastructure perspective. That's basically sensors or I mean we ground-based, space-based even to understand how this works and can it track objects to a good extent, how accurate it is. And the next step is once we have data from these sensors to be able to fuse this data, process this data into positions or state vectors, once that is then the last part of it is analytics and that's where it is being used by the industry as space situational awareness services. So during this process we have different actors working on different part of the value chain. We have governments who have set up infrastructure a few decades ago or I mean even during the Cold War we had infrastructure to track objects in space. So the first step is making sure that we have enough sensors for us to be able to track what's happening in the orbit. So for every industry to grow it needs a basic infrastructure that it can grow on. The infrastructure here is not just the hardware but the entire underlying infrastructure that the economy should have or the industry should have for it to grow and flourish. So in space unlike other domains like aviation and marine domain awareness we have different ways for us to govern what's happening in space and it's much easier. What's happening in that particular space it's much easier for us in air and marine cases because you have jurisdictions that you can draw you can draw boundaries and determine whose domain is this and how do you collaborate on a global scale but when it comes to space there is no physical boundaries that you can draw or put limitations for governance. So that brings us to a question where we need to establish good relations between agencies or country space-faring nations working not only on the infrastructure side but also on data sharing side. So we need to have data sharing agreements between nations for us to be able to exchange data because not all the time let's just say not all the time US cannot have sensors and China or Russia or have access to sensors there. So it becomes difficult for us to even get good amount of data sets of what's happening in the orbit. So one of the things that SSA does here is to be able to support the operations in the orbit and right now it's more important than ever that's just because of what's happening in space the congestion, the mega constellation that is adding up. So this requires this particular infrastructure and moving further this will be one of the basic requirement that every space actor should have while they operate or have assets in the orbit. So this becomes one of the intrinsic part of the ecosystem itself like it is for the aviation sector. Today there is no aviation sector without the backbone of air traffic management or the infrastructure that supports the entire aviation not just the military side but also the commercial side. So the similar thing is prone to happen in space and space situation awareness will be the basis for everybody to build upon because that's how we'll know what's happening in the orbit and now talking about the second and third steps which is data fusion, data processing and the last part is analytics. Here no matter how good your algorithms are or how good your data processing systems are unless you have accurate, good enough sensor information it doesn't really make sense even if you have good algorithms to process these data. So for us to have imperative and common understanding of what's happening in space you need to have sensors which right now we have a lot of commercial companies like us or I mean a few other companies working in the sector where they're not just contributing to generation of data but they're also complimenting what the governments have already done or space faring nations have already done like the US was the forefront nation in terms of having infrastructure, US and Russia had infrastructure to track objects in the orbit before. Now we have commercial companies supporting their efforts in adding more data points to what's already available. So today we have a catalog of 35,000 objects that we can use every single day but we need to go to a point where we have more than at least 100,000 objects at the pace we are going because there are debris particles below 20 centimeters size which is very difficult to track with the existing systems. You need complementary systems to even understand what's happening so that fulfills the requirement of having a better catalog so that we don't have false positives when you provide this data to any user, be it military or commercial sectors. Thank you. I was gonna say I love how passionate the panel is on this topic but we're running low on time so I'm gonna ask you guys to just think about how we can quickly get through all the questions we wanted to. So with that, Mike, there have been concerns on this panel that have been raised in terms of ASAT test debris, irresponsible actions, verifying activities in orbit. How are those concerns being addressed either in the open-ended working group or elsewhere in the UN system? Great, so I think the first thing I should say is that the UN has slowly been working to develop norms and end measures in 2013. For instance, there was an expert group that proposed a set of transparency and confidence-building measures that proposed various measures like information exchanges on space security policies and military expenditures, exchanges on space activities that provided a set of risk reduction notifications and a number of other measures including visits to launch sites and facilities, consultative mechanisms and so forth. And earlier this April, we did see agreement in a universal UN body to actually agree on a set of recommendations on the implementation of those measures and so we do see scope for progress even in a very difficult, challenging international security environment. Coming over and back to the discussions in the open-ended working group. So in the first instance, I should say a little bit more about how it's kind of set up its work and it's already had an opportunity to look at how the implementation of existing international law can help mitigate space threats and so this has had involved discussions on specific aspects of the Outer Space Treaty, for instance, the principle of due regard. It's also had a conversation on the law of conflict and how the unique characteristics of the space environment might constrain certain types of hostile actions in a way that's different from other domains and so already this forms a good basis for kind of understanding what are those limits on state behavior and outer space. Another feature of the conversation is that it hasn't been exclusively looking at objects in orbit so the discussion has looked at all sorts of vectors of threats is how this has been described in the work. So looking at threats that go from terrestrial to the space but also in the other direction, space-based threats that can target objects on the ground, threats that might originate from other systems in orbit and also threats to the ground segment of space systems, whether those are from conventional means of attack or even cyber means and that's been one of the key threats that especially the commercial actors have expressed coming into this process. In terms of the set of measures that the group will be negotiating, of course I can't sort of prejudge where we'll land on that, those negotiations still have to take place later this summer but in terms of the broad areas that where states have expressed interest in exploring those have included measures that would of course avoid the deliberate dimension structure of space objects or the use of space objects as means of attack, measures to avoid development or deployment of any kind of counter space capabilities, measures to avoid interference with the normal and safe operation of spacecraft through any means, measures to regulate acts and involving military systems given, taking into account that some critical military infrastructure could really pose risk that those systems were threatened in any sorts of way. It's an important kind of emergent conversation around the need to extend protections and international law to certain objects that are entitled to special protection, critical civilian infrastructure and in particular human space flight as well are both kind of categories of objects or activities that already enjoys special protection and that this process could help to codify those principles, any provision of assistance or encouragement to other actors that might engage in any of these restricted activities. There was discussion on how to cooperate more in spatial situational awareness, a discussion around different aspects of policies and doctrines, strategies that might also contribute to raising tensions, the expanded use of pre and post launch notifications, notifications of military operations and of course how to make better use of the consultative mechanisms. So this is just to give you a sense of the range of measures that have been put on the table that states will be working to negotiate later this summer and then finally just to kind of come back very briefly to the points that the Undersecretary General Ryder made in his keynote address. The Secretary General has proposed that mattress space is one of the tracks for the summer of the future in 2024 and so we're very much hoping that states will be making use of the relevant disarmament bodies and with the widest possible acceptance to develop norm tools and principles and on that basis to launch negotiations on what we hope will be a legally binding instrument to ensure peace, security and the prevention of an arms race in outer space. Thank you. Thank you Mike. Good luck as you guys finish things up this summer. I know it's not an easy job. We appreciate you guys doing it. Maurice, Canada was a second country to make the commitment not to conduct destructive anti-settlement missile tests. Congratulations on the leadership you guys showed there. There are now 13 countries that have made that commitment but could you talk a little bit about what were the drivers for Canada to make that commitment and do you possibly see maybe an expansion of that commitment at some point even to a legally binding option? Yeah, thank you for the question. Yeah, so Canada has been advocating for a ban on DASAT tests for decades so it's a position that we've had for a long time and we've made hundreds of statements on it at the UN. We've submitted dozens of papers so really this is a position that, a national position that was clear to us. So, and supporting the U.S. ban was really in line with that long lasting commitment and we were really happy to be the second nation to put our position publicly on this. So for us, destructive DASAT missile tests is the most obvious threat and visible threat to the space domain that stem from military activities. So many nations have tested it in the past and as it was discussed this morning by General Shaw, this is no longer something that can be accepted given the third space age or the proliferation of space activities. And we've seen that delivery created by the recent Russian one, which was quite surprising to us that they would do it as well and also quite frankly, disappointing. It created threat for all the asset that are in Leo and also for the International Space Station. It had to maneuver so it creates increased costs for every space actors and I don't think I need to expand too much to this from why additional space debris are bad really. But why have states specifically united behind banning direct ascent tests, kinetic direct ascent tests first before any other liberating tests? So the answer to that is that it's because it is simple to recognize. It's easy to attribute and given it is very detrimental on the space environment, this was one of the top threat that needed to be addressed as a priority. It's a first step really. And while Canada never had the intent to do such tests, it was clear that we would support it publicly because we need more nation to add their voice to that commitment for it to become a norm and ultimately an internationally agreed upon behaviors, principle, sorry. So this is also something I wanted this from to know that I think it's important that if you believe this is an important ban that you maybe approach your government and that you reinforce the importance of that ban because we really need more nation to support it publicly. And this is in terms of making it a legally binding instrument. For the ASAP test, we understand this threat very well. We understand capability. And I think there's a big alignment between nation about why it's bad and why we need to prevent it. So yes, Canada would support a legally binding instrument. And for the other threats and the other type of the brick creating event, we believe that we need to continue growing the understanding before we can come to an agreement on such legally binding instrument. But for the ASAP test, the answer is simple. So it's a yes. Great, glad to hear it. All right, other countries, you've been given notice. Tim, how can debris management, whether it's removal on or servicing a derelict spacecraft, how can that help with space security and stability? Well, first thanks for the softball question. That's an easy one. And I think I would extend the question to the entire scope of in orbit services, whether it's mission extension or servicing and repair or manufacturing in space and debris removal and disposal. There's a whole range of services that all contribute to that circular space economy that Caroline talked about yesterday. So I think they all contribute directly to the question. I think we also spend an awful lot of time talking about SSA and STM as if it is the panacea. Like, that's the solution to the problem. And I think we need to recognize that if you never reach stability, if you never reach equilibrium between the sources of debris, whether it's in terms of mass or number or some other metric, between those sources and the sinks, the rate at which you produce it and the rate at which you take it out of orbit, eventually the best SSA and STM system is gonna get overwhelmed, right? So it does help you prevent collisions, but it is really a stopgap. It's a way of allowing you to operate in a congested environment that is getting more and more congested therefore you need to be better at it. It does not directly address the fundamental problem of an unstable environment. We need to think about preventing the generation of new debris and taking debris out of orbit and creating an equilibrium there. Unfortunately, we're not really all that good at prevention, right? We tend, I think, as a species to exploit our environments until the cost of exploitation outweighs the cost of stewardship, right? And that's true terrestrially. It's true with air pollution, water, fishing. It extends to space too. And I think we're there. I mean, we're seeing the effects of that now and unfortunately that means that remediation is gonna have to be part of that solution, right? It's far less expensive to not produce the debris in the first place but we're probably gonna. So remediation's gotta be part of the solution. Thank you. Yeah, I think oftentimes people tend to look at space flight safety and space security stability as two separate things whereas one definitely feeds into the other and shapes the other as well. And ready, just in broad terms, easy question. What responsible behaviors would you like to see all space actors carry out? Thank you. In the short amount of time we have left. Yep, yep, I see it, I see it. Thank you, Victoria. Well, for Nigeria, I'll take us quickly back to the open-ended working group now. Like, you know, one of the challenges the OEWG has had is for states to come together and agree on what could constitute responsible behaviors in outer space. Yesterday during the panel, I had someone mention something about how difficult it was to get over 100 states to agree on something. Yeah, it's also in the OEWG. However, for Nigeria, we have a framework of what we consider as responsible behaviors in outer space. So in order not to leave anything out, I'll just give you an insight into what we consider as responsible behaviors in outer space. First of all, it's a commitment by states not to conduct destructive direct asatessen in order to mitigate the growing threat of space debris capable of causing harm to existing space systems of other sovereign states. Also, for states not to test and use kinetic outer space capabilities. For example, we have states developing capabilities, states developing capabilities to eject projectiles where space assets get impacted by these things and then deliberately colliding with other space assets of sovereign states. You know, all these pose serious concerns to a state like Nigeria. And also for states to understand that conducting rendezvous operations require consent from states who could be potentially impacted by these activities. And also another responsible behavior we'd like to see in outer spaces for states to understand that the consideration regarding the conduct of proximity operations is key because there should be information sharing, there should be transparency in conducting certain activities in outer space. And finally, you know, for states to refrain from conducting activities that could interfere with space-based critical services of other sovereign states. For example, cyber interference that may cause harm to civilians or disrupt public services. I have earlier mentioned that Nigeria conducts a space-related activity strictly for peaceful uses. And most of these uses serve public interest. So once we have states acting irresponsibly, you know, and altering, you know, these functions that we use our space systems for, it becomes a problem. And we will term that as irresponsible behaviors in outer space. Thank you. Thank you. So we've been getting a lot of questions coming in from the audience and we're running low on time. But, you know, one thing that comes up a lot is the idea of transparency and sharing information. How do you balance the needs of improving competence in terms of activities in orbit that countries are gonna do and actors are gonna do what they said they're gonna do. But also balance, you know, there's mistrust in the geopolitical environment right now. How do we thread that needle between sharing enough information but also maybe having difficulty in understanding what other countries are gonna be doing if they're, or trust they're gonna say they're gonna do what they do. And perhaps some of the UN folks wanna start off with that one. Sure, I'm happy to take that one. And very quickly. Yeah, quickly. Yeah, I just, yeah, I think the two sentence responses really just, you know, sustained engagement in an institutional setting. It's when one of the benefits of the OAWG processes that it did provide that platform for states to exchange their own perceptions and to discuss that. And then that was an important trust building exercise that the group was able to undertake. And even just having a regular platform for exchanging national space security policies and discussing, being able to clarify questions is also an important trust building exercise that could really help at this particular moment. Thanks. Other thoughts? Marisa? Yeah, maybe just one thing. I think in the past it was mostly reserved to the nation to be able to see what was happening in space. But now with all the commercial capabilities that we have available to us, it's harder and harder to hide what is being done in space. So I think it greatly contributes to increasing that consensus between the actors because you have some on class and proof of what is happening. So you cannot deny any more as much as states could have in the past. Back in the day. Thanks again. Back in the day. And ready? I will just attribute this to just few words or two words, legally binding. Now, how truly can we confirm the level of transparency that states actually exhibit? But true advocation for legally binding measures to regulate space-based activities, we can hold states accountable for irresponsible behaviors. And cognizant of this very, very important aspect, I believe states will begin to take information sharing which could be incorporated into this binding measures. You'll begin to take them more seriously knowing fully well that they can be held accountable for irresponsible behaviors in outer space. Thank you. And then just very quickly for the commercial operators, there's a question that came in about how do you protect against cybersecurity attack? That's a real threat and very quickly, quickly in 10 seconds or less. So how do you guys protect against cyber attacks? Cyber attacks, I mean, we've seen few weeks ago I mean, a French company demonstrated that. So at this point in time, apart from building countermeasures to it, there is nothing much that commercial companies are doing at this point in time. Rather, I would say that we'll have more to work on the encryptions on the onboard satellite computers. Thank you, Tim. Yeah, I mean, there are sort of escalating standards and care that you can implement and that's kind of the strategy at this point. It's a priority for your organization. Oh, absolutely. Definitely. Great. Well, we're getting really close on time, but just to wrap up for the panelists, if you could just say, if you want the audience to walk away from saying, okay, I heard this person speak and this is what I'm taking away from their conversation, what would you like that take away to be? Maybe we'll start and go down the line and ready? All right. I would say for the audience to bear in mind and take away the fact that space in itself has become an existential necessity and the way or manner in which we operated, utilize it, sustain it, secure it would largely depend on the role that each and every one of us here plays from states to the private sector. And yeah, I'd like everyone to take that away from this. Thank you. Thank you. Maurice? So having worked for National Defense on Space Security and strategy for a few years now, I've seen a shift in the way we perceive the contribution of commercial and civil actors. So previously it was more, we develop our national position and then commercial actors are providing us with their services. But now the integration of the perspective is paramount if we want to move forward on those topics. And I think I've seen a shift inside the organization about that mindset of making sure that all actors are more and more integrated in this discussion. And this is like the commercial integration center as part of the operation themselves but also as we develop national policies and strategy. So I encourage the other actors as well to come forward and engage more and more with National Defense and their government. More and more engagement. Great, thank you. Tim? Yeah, I would say that the takeaway is that the Leo and Gio environments are really fragile. And it's probably not an exaggeration to say that the Leo environment is gonna be our next environmental crisis if we're not careful. There is often a call for more study, more data, better characterization, and so on at four like this. We've heard some of that today and yesterday in particular. And I think there's a danger in that. I mean, the answer is obvious. What we need to do is obvious. More study, more analysis is terrific and we can write lots of papers on it. It's not gonna change the answer. In 1995, NASA published their first guidance and it said, don't create intentional debris. Don't explode, don't collide and get your stuff out of orbit when you're done. The tools and the capabilities we have at our disposal have changed since 1995, but that basic premise has not. And so I would really ask that we not stifle the progress on action with endless calls for additional study. Thank you. And we've spoken enough about the importance of space sustainability and space from common people's point in, I mean, their point of view and also from the government agencies or military point of view. And I think it's time for us to act on both prevention and remediation of what's already happening and we are at the right time to solve that. Otherwise it'll become the next crisis. So one of the things that I would like to mention is it's not just, I mean, we should not just complain that there needs to be a regulation or on the governance side, there needs to be better policy. Rather it's, I mean, the burden is on the ecosystem, basically both commercial, public, private and military organizations to work together and solve for it right now. Thank you. And then I know we've gone over so Mike can begin to be real succinct. What do you want the takeaway to be from your remarks today? Yeah, sure, two points. One, I agree that the UN hasn't really always succeeded in prevention but prevention is far more easier before capabilities and threats have matured and so that's why there's urgency now to see these measures develop. The second point is that there's a real opportunity and need to have all voices represented, the current OEWG and invited attendance from commercial actors, social society representatives in academia and so we will be looking as much as we can within our mandates to incorporate voices from as many stakeholders as possible going forward and so please encourage all those given that what's the space really does affect everybody to use those opportunities to speak up, share your own threat perceptions, participate and to give inputs into these intergovernmental processes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please join me in thanking this panel for this very in-depth conversation. Thank you.