(FORTUNE Magazine) – INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES can produce more snores than fireworks, but a meeting in August of some 160 countries to regulate satellite orbit positions promises a kind of Star Wars on earth. The gathering pits the U.S., the Soviet Union, European nations, and other big players in the satellite market against less-developed countries such as India and Indonesia. Satellite makers and operators, including Hughes Aircraft, RCA, and Western Union, face possible restrictions on doing business in space. An adviser to the U.S. committee preparing for the meeting is Stephen Doyle, director of strategic planning at a subsidiary of Aerojet General, a maker of rocket engines. Says Doyle: ''This will be the most important space telecommunications conference of the century.'' The conference -- called Space-Warc, for World Administrative Radio Conference -- was spawned by the International Telecommunications Union, a Geneva-based regulatory agency. Space-Warc's job will be to devise a plan for allotting slots and frequencies along the so-called geostationary orbit, a narrow strip high above the equator. Satellites spinning in this orbit are always in about the same relative position to points on earth. The constant location allows the satellites to transmit long-distance telephone calls, beam TV programming from networks to local stations, and deliver electronic mail. Until about seven years ago, a country could obtain a satellite slot almost routinely from the International Telecommunications Union. But slots in the geostationary orbit that could be used for beaming transmissions to North America and the Soviet Union began to run short. In the mid-Seventies, India set out to launch its first communications satellite, but discovered that the slots it wanted had already been spoken for by the Soviet Union and Intelsat, a consortium of 109 nations that provides two-thirds of the world's public satellite telecommunications. India wound up with what it regards as an inferior slot and now argues, according to an Indian official, that ''the technology and availability of space should not be monopolized by a few developed countries.'' India and other less-developed countries want the geostationary orbit carved up, with every country getting its own reserved satellite-parking spot. They argue that the first-come, first-served policy is stacked against them. ''The question is, do we impose constraints based on actual or artificial demand?'' says Ronald Stowe, vice president of Satellite Business Systems, a partnership of IBM and Aetna. Besides, says Stowe, improved designs make it possible to squeeze more satellites along the orbit. Satellites have been spaced no closer than 3 degrees apart; now the Federal Communications Commission is reducing the separation to 2 degrees. At Space-Warc, the less-developed countries will outnumber developed countries at least 2 to 1, and each nation gets one vote. Says Wilson Dizard, a fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies, ''The Third World can upset the apple cart, which is a pretty good apple cart for us.'' A compromise is likely, one that will protect vital interests of the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and other big users of telecommunications satellites.