Space diplomacy: bridging the operating gaps between myriad missions

More organizations than ever before are operating, financing and regulating activities in space. The question is whether all this activity is designed intentionally — with each sector contributing what it does best — or left to fragment through uncoordinated choices. Historic Artemis II Moon fly-by: Nature ’s live coverage as it happened Problems of incoherence are already evident and will mount. Orbital congestion is growing, with thousands of satellites crowding low Earth orbit and defunct satellites generating debris . More than 40,000 shards of metal circling Earth threaten to collide with spacecraft 1 , yet there is no internationally agreed protocol requiring space junk to be tracked or remediated. Scientific, commercial and security activities in space are often planned in isolation, even when they operate in similar orbits 2 and use the same communications frequencies 3 . A patchwork of approaches for space-traffic management and data sharing heightens risks of confusion and collisions. Plans for future Moon bases and infrastructures are also being prepared in parallel, without shared norms 4 . And the race to control lunar resources raises questions about rights to extraction, liability and benefit-sharing that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty left unresolved. Key research facilities on Earth and in orbit also need protection from reflected light and radio interference from satellites . Flagship astrophysics projects — such as the James Webb Space Telescope, the Vera C. …