Japan and Italy to issue G7-eve joint pledge on space regulation
Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni plan to release a joint pledge on the sidelines of the G7 covering space-debris mitigation and new orbital traffic rules. Nikkei said the deal targets commercial mega-constellation operations in low-Earth orbit in particular.
Nikkei Asia reports that the joint declaration prepared by Tokyo and Rome will add binding enforcement to principles already endorsed in the UN Outer Space Committee. The deal will steer industry toward cutting the existing 25-year 'post-orbital cleanup' target to five years. Japan plans to integrate its GUARD debris tracking system with Italy's e-Geos.
The document is not expected to bind major mega-constellation operators such as SpaceX's Starlink or China's Guowang directly. But Rome said it would impose specific data-sharing compliance terms on Galileo satellite navigation operations. A European Space Agency spokesperson said the pledge is aligned with the European Commission's draft 'Space Act'.
The G7 summit begins on Sunday in Cernobbio, with space governance treated as a priority on the technology-sovereignty agenda. A repeated FCC debris report released last month argued for a binding international framework. A joint press conference by Takaichi and Meloni is planned for Monday.
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