"The space industry is evolving, expanding at an extremely fast pace. As new players come on board the number of risk rises but so does the number of opportunities," said French Ambassador Philippe Étienne.
Though even global rivals had substantive discussions this time, "I imagine that it will start to get spicier," an allied expert said of the next meeting of the UN group that will focus on threatening behavior by military space operators.
Since the United States has not carried out any debris-producing anti-satellite activities since 2008, Washington is, in effect, transforming a tacit U.S. policy into a formal one.