On Earth, the term “circular economy” has gained traction across industries and policy circles as a framework for reducing waste, conserving resources, and redesigning systems to keep materials in circulation. The model offers an alternative to the traditional linear model of “take, make, dispose”, which generates significant environmental harm and relies heavily on continued access to cheap, abundant raw materials.
But what might circularity mean beyond Earth’s surface?
In space, we face different kinds of constraints – mass, energy, accessibility – and a radically different waste environment. When an object reaches end-of-life in orbit, it’s often either deorbited and burned in Earth’s atmosphere or abandoned in a higher “graveyard” orbit. Either way, its materials are effectively lost. With the rapid rise in satellite constellations and orbital infrastructure, there’s a growing case for exploring whether circular principles can be applied to the space economy – not just in theory, but in practice.
This post lays the foundation for that exploration.
Defining the Circular Economy: More Than Recycling
The circular economy is not just a recycling initiative. It’s a broad rethink of how we design, produce, use, and recover materials and systems. The aim is to create closed, or at least significantly shorter, loops in material flows. This helps reduce the need for virgin extraction and minimises harmful waste.
Key principles include:
- Designing for longevity and repairability, so products last longer
- Designing for disassembly, so components can be separated and reused
- Using materials that can be remanufactured or recycled at high value
- Developing business models that prioritise service over ownership (e.g. leasing or subscription)
- Recovering materials at end-of-life and reintegrating them into production
On Earth, the idea is often driven by environmental concerns – pollution, landfill use, depletion of finite resources – but also increasingly by economic ones. A more circular system can reduce supply chain vulnerabilities and resource dependency, while creating new value streams.
The Disposal Challenge in Space
Disposal in space looks different, but carries its own long-term risks. Most satellites are designed for one-time use, and once their mission ends, they either fall back to Earth and burn up, or they remain in orbit indefinitely. Reentry might seem clean – nothing is left behind – but it’s effectively the same as incineration in a linear economy. Materials are destroyed, and any embedded value is lost.
Importantly, there is growing concern that burning spacecraft in the upper atmosphere is not environmentally neutral. Recent studies suggest that reentry may release aluminium oxides and other particles that accumulate in the mesosphere and stratosphere. These could have long-term impacts on ozone chemistry and high-altitude atmospheric dynamics. While the science is still developing, the idea that disposal-by-burning is harmless is increasingly being challenged.
Although low Earth orbit (LEO) is self-cleaning over time due to atmospheric drag, the sheer number of objects being launched – particularly by communications constellations – is creating a growing burden on orbital capacity. Each deorbited satellite represents not only a loss of raw materials, but also a missed opportunity to think differently about how orbital infrastructure might evolve.
A circular space economy would try to reduce this constant cycle of launch and discard. It wouldn’t eliminate waste entirely – no system can – but it would shift how we think about satellite design, material use, and the role of servicing, repurposing, and recovery in future missions.
Circularity Beyond Rockets
Most of the public attention around space reuse focuses on launch vehicles. SpaceX’s Falcon 9, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and Rocket Lab’s Electron booster recovery all show the benefits of bringing hardware back for refurbishment and reuse.
But rockets are only part of the story. The real volume of hardware – and the bigger long-term sustainability challenge – lies with spacecraft in orbit. Thousands of new satellites are being deployed each year, especially in LEO, and most are designed for short life spans and one-way use.
Applying circular principles to satellites brings new challenges. Components are smaller, tightly integrated, and exposed to years of radiation, extreme temperatures, and micrometeoroid abrasion. They’re also manufactured with little standardisation, which limits modularity and reuse.
Still, these barriers aren’t entirely new. The electronics sector, for example, faced similar issues in managing e-waste – high complexity, low recoverability, unclear material value, and weak economic incentives. Over time, through better regulation and design, that industry began to move toward a more circular model. It’s far from perfect, but it shows what’s possible.
Limits, Realism, and Why It’s Worth Exploring
No circular economy is perfect. Most Earth-based systems still rely on resource extraction and generate unrecoverable waste. But the goal isn’t perfection. It’s progress – slowing the flow of materials, reducing unnecessary loss, and getting more value out of each product or mission.
In space, that progress will be harder to achieve. We don’t yet have the infrastructure to service or disassemble satellites in orbit. We lack the business models to recover and repurpose materials. And we haven’t yet agreed on who should take responsibility – and how – for enabling these practices across the industry.
Even so, the idea is worth examining.
Thinking in circular terms can help us frame more strategic questions about sustainability. Not just about debris, but about long-term system design, resource use, and where value can be preserved or recovered. It can encourage more forward-thinking design practices and shift the economics of how we build and operate in orbit.
We might never reach full circularity in space. But we can build toward something better than burn-and-forget.
