Leighton, MarkHarrison, TanyaSoriano, Lorena2026-10-1320262026-10-132026Soriano, Lorena. 2026. Beyond Space Debris: A Material Space Sustainability Index for the Transition to a Space-Centric Focus. Masters Thesis, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education.32905925https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42759946As the paradigm shifts from government-backed entities in spaceflight and exploration to private ventures, guidance and accepted regulation to define sustainability beyond the scope of Earth-centric initiatives is essential to the successful operations of space flight. There is concern that current regulatory guidance from space laws and treaties such as the Outer Space Treaty and Liability Convention do not adequately address the private space industry environmental and social impacts, as they were formed during the period of government-led space exploration (Di Tullio & Rea, 2024). While the Artemis Accords and UN’s Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities were established –in 2020 and 2019 respectively— during private & commercial space exploration, they are not legally binding (Maiwald, 2023). Additional guidance can be sourced from various sustainability reporting frameworks such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI), and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB); however, they are Earth-centric and fail to provide a framework for space-centric sustainability initiatives, leaving management, accountability, and compliance entirely up to the discretion of private ventures to interpret material sustainability topics (Wilson & Vasile, 2023). I combined two studies to develop space-centric sustainability indicators, identify the most material indicators to Earth’s stakeholders, and understand the influence of organizational macro-determinants on sustainability reporting across four space company cohorts –Launch, Operators, Frontier, Servicing. In the first study, 62 space-centric sustainability indicators were developed across four categories – Cultural Heritage, Planetary Protection, In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), and Astronaut Health & Human Factors. A space sustainability stakeholder analysis survey was conducted across five stakeholder groups –Academic/Researcher, Business and Government, General Public, General STEM, Space Industry—to identify the most material indicators. Respondents provided feedback on indicators from “Not Important” to “Extremely Important”, then were instructed to perform a forced-choice ranking for all “Extremely Important” selections within each category. As evaluated by a derived Composite Materiality Index (CMI), overall responses ranked Planetary Protection as the most important, followed by Astronaut Health & Human Factors, then Cultural Heritage and ISRU. In the second study, 80 space companies across four company cohorts, different maturity levels, regions, years of operations, company size, sustainability leadership structure, and financial strength were audited to the 15 most material space-centric sustainability indicators utilizing a 4-level ordinal scale and a binary Boolean variable framework to account for localized low variance. Results were evaluated (by cohort) for quantity of reported indicators, qualitative depth of report, and balance of reports across indicator types. Greater financial strength and higher executive oversight of sustainability leadership were determined to be the two most impactful internal drivers for quantity, qualitative depth, and balance of reporting. Geographic location of primary operation was determined to be the single most impactful external driver for quantity, qualitative depth, and balance of reporting.application/pdfenCommercial SpaceflightLunar DevelopmentLunar InfrastructureSpaceSpace ExplorationSpace SustainabilitySustainabilityThesis or Dissertation2026-10-130009-0007-9167-8165