Louis de Gouyon Matignon

The Woomera Manual

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The Woomera Manual, which’s name is drawn from the village of Woomera, in South Australia, which has a long association with both Australian and multi-national military space operations, aims to be a widely-recognised and accepted objective statement of existing international law (lex lata) applicable to military space operations. It will be published by a major international publisher. Government lawyers (especially military lawyers), policy-makers, decision-makers and military space operators comprise the key target audience of the Manual. However, it is also expected to spark interest and debate among a wide range of international institutions and the general public, as well as serve as a platform for further academic discourse and research, particularly as legal principles and policies are further developed in response to changing political realities and the evolving global security environment. The project will be completed in 2021 and will draw on the knowledge of dozens of legal and space operations experts from around the world.

As we can read on the website of The University of Adelaide (Australia), “the Woomera Manual project is an international research project that is spearheaded by The University of Adelaide, The University of Exeter, the University Of Nebraska and the University of New South Wales – Canberra”. The mission is to develop a Manual that objectively articulates and clarifies existing international law applicable to military space operations. Then, we can read the following: “The success of the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflict at Sea, the Harvard Manual on International Law Applicable to Air and Missile Warfare, and the Tallinn Manual on International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations (versions 1.0 and 2.0) demonstrate how international experts and associated engagement with governments can offer an authoritative and clear articulation of international law in new domains for government legal advisers, decision-makers, and operators. The Woomera Manual aims to replicate – with respect to outer space – the successes of these earlier manuals”.

“Military forces have a strong reliance on space assets and in that regard our project will look at three particular phases: military activities in the time of peace, military activities in the time of rising tension, and outright armed conflicts” says Professor Dale Stephens, who then enounces that the team “will be looking at satellites and other space objects, but also looking a bit into the future, anticipating humanity’s settlement of the Moon and other celestial bodies, and anticipating the legal issues that might arise from that phenomenon”. Founding partner Professor Melissa de Zwart, Dean of the Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide, then explains that “over the next few years, we will be having meetings in Australia, North America, Europe and beyond, and after that, we will engage in a process of State engagement which will give integrity and authenticity to the Manual”. For the Professor, conflict in outer space is not a case of “if” but “when” and “the legal regime that governs the use of force and actual armed conflict in outer space is currently very unclear, which is why the Woomera Manual is needed”. Before studying the Woomera Manual, let’s take a look at the legality of military activities in outer space.

I. The legality of military activities in outer space

The space sector has emerged for reasons related to the military sector. Are we today heading towards a militarization of international spaces (Antarctica, outer space or the high seas)? To be interested in outer space is to understand that this environment is free but framed (some will say limited). Space law is based on liberty and this freedom cannot be shared at best for the greatest number unless it has certain limits. The first limitation, and one of the most important when space activities appeared, was for the two superpowers of the Cold War and the United Nations, to establish the peaceful uses of outer space, the demilitarization or denuclearization of outer space.

All States without discrimination have an inalienable right to develop the uses of nuclear energy for civilian purposes, provided that they do not divert these peaceful uses to nuclear weapons. However, five countries have the right to possess these weapons, namely the United States of America, France, Russia, China and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Around this position, a lively debate both legal and ethical has been raised. For its opponents, nuclear energy represents a long-term risk that cannot be controlled by science. Major nuclear accidents, radioactive waste and the diversion of nuclear energy for military purposes are unmanageable and exceptionally serious risks. On the other hand, the defenders of this energy present it as safe, even as a stakeholder in sustainable development. According to them, nuclear power is a reliable way to fight against global warming and also a solution to the energy shortage that the world is facing. By examining and analysing the reliability and credibility of all the arguments against and in favour of this industry, we find that the lawfulness and legitimacy of the use of nuclear energy are ill-founded. What about the use of weapons in outer space? The nuclearization of outer space?

If the Soviet Union was able on October 4, 1957 to orbit Sputnik 1, the first space object, it meant that it would also be able to use intercontinental ballistic missiles (an intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM, is a guided ballistic missile with a minimum range of five thousand five hundred kilometres primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery – delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads) against its adversaries, in particular the United States of America. The question of the militarization of outer space is a very delicate issue, the subject being highly strategic, and States not easily agreeing on it, often leaving room for further misunderstandings. Since a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly of December 13, 1958, it was desired to see outer space used exclusively for peaceful purposes. The General Assembly stated that it wished to avoid the extension of present national rivalries into the field of outer space, that the exploration and exploitation of outer space shall be done for the benefit of mankind, considered that such co-operation will promote mutual understanding and the strengthening of friendly relations among people. The Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed on August 5, 1963, also prohibits nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, beyond its limits, including outer space, or underwater, including territorial waters or high seas. This text has the merit of enacting prohibitions that extend as much to areas under the jurisdiction of States as to spaces removed from the sovereignty of States. It is also important to mention that resolution 1884 (XVIII), calling upon States to refrain from placing in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction or from installing such weapons on celestial bodies, was adopted unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly on October 17, 1963.

Article IV of the 1967 Treaty distinguishes the legal regime for the whole of outer space and special limits concerning the Moon and other celestial bodies. It states that “States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner. The Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration of the Moon and other celestial bodies shall also not be prohibited”. It refers to a total demilitarization of outer space and prohibits weapons of mass destruction, that is to say, atomic, bacteriological, chemical or equivalent effect. We can also think of environmental modification techniques for military or hostile purposes, as envisaged since the Convention of May 18, 1977, which prohibits the use of such weapons. The Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD), formally the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, is an international treaty prohibiting the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects. It opened for signature on May 18, 1977 in Geneva and entered into force on October 5, 1978. The Convention bans weather warfare, which is the use of weather modification techniques, such as cloud seeding, for the purposes of inducing damage or destruction. The Convention on Biological Diversity of 2010 would also ban some forms of weather modification or geoengineering.

This ban on certain armaments, particularly on Earth orbits, is obviously one of the most important for security on Earth. Recall that the Treaty of Outer Space (1967) was adopted at a time when arms limitation agreements were at the heart of diplomatic concerns, especially those of the two superpowers (The Treaty of Tlatelolco, signed on February 14, 1967, is the conventional name given to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean; the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, signed on July 1, 1968, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament; the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States of America and the Soviet Union, the Cold War superpowers, on the issue of arms control. The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II and negotiations commenced in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1969). The total demilitarization of the Moon and celestial bodies is also provided for in the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (entered into force on July 11, 1984).

Article 3 of the Moon Agreement of 1979 states that “States Parties shall not place in orbit around or other trajectory to or around the Moon objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction or place or use such weapons on or in the Moon. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on the Moon shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration and use of the Moon shall also not be prohibited”.

There are questions about the interpretation of the term peaceful: either non-military (broad interpretation) or non-aggressive (narrow interpretation). The United States of America prefers the narrow interpretation and constructs its argument by explaining that it is necessary to retain the right of self-defence, as expressed both in customary law and in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. Chapter VII, Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations concerning “Action with respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression” states that “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security”.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Act of 1958 also refers to the peaceful purposes of research and outer space, stating that “The Congress hereby declares that it is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind”. The United States of America has always considered the action of reconnaissance satellites (a reconnaissance satellite or intelligence satellite, commonly, although unofficially, referred to as a spy satellite, is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications) to be both military and peaceful. The Soviet Union, for its part, quickly defended the idea that certain activities are prohibited, even for the State acting under conditions of self-defence, based for example on the Geneva Protocol of 1925 on the use of biological weapons (the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed conflicts. It was signed at Geneva on June 17, 1925 and entered into force on February 8, 1928. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on September 7, 1929), the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Manufacture, Stockpiling and Use of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons (the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, usually referred to as the Biological Weapons Convention, was the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the production of an entire category of weapons. The Convention was the result of prolonged efforts by the international community to establish a new instrument that would supplement the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The Geneva Protocol prohibits use but not possession or development of chemical and biological weapons) or the Environmental Modification Convention of May 18, 1977 on Environmental Changes for hostile purposes. The Soviet Union has also come to recognize the peacebuilding function of reconnaissance satellites.

To summarize, all areas of outer space are devoid of certain weapons, in this case weapons of mass destruction, whether for storage, experimentation or even more use; on the other hand, certain areas, in this case the Moon and the celestial bodies, generally exclude all military activity: all weapons are prohibited in certain areas and certain weapons are prohibited in all zones. This conclusion makes it possible to develop or envisage certain military activities in outer space without the right being able to give an unambiguous answer to the question of the lawfulness of these activities.

II. THE WOOMERA MANUAL ON THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF MILITARY SPACE OPERATIONS

The Woomera Manual aims at developing a Manual that will objectively articulate and clarify existing international law applicable to military space operations. According to the project, the instruments or Onusian Space Treaties do not expressly address the initiation and conduct of hostilities involving outer space, and little State practice exists on the subject. The Information Booklet of The University of Adelaide specifies that “Since the 1980s, the United Nations General Assembly has annually adopted a resolution urging States to refrain from actions that contribute to an arms race in outer space. Various initiatives, such as the proposed treaty to prevent the placement of weapons in outer space (PPWT), the proposed International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities (ICOC), and multilateral diplomatic efforts aimed at developing transparency and confidence-building measures (TCBMs) have not sufficed to ensure the sustainability and security of outer space”.

The Woomera Manual then adds that “The law governing the resort to force set forth in the UN Charter and the law of armed conflict have long been accepted by States as applicable to operations involving outer space. Yet, the manner in which these bodies of law should be interpreted in the context of outer space has not been comprehensively examined. This resulting lack of normative clarity presents the risk of State or non-State actors taking action involving outer space that might be misunderstood by others, or even characterised as unlawful. It also allows States that might wish to conduct hostile space operations to do so in a zone of uncertainty, which complicates responses by other States. Therefore, it is essential that space actors not only acknowledge that there is a rules-based order that applies to outer space, even in periods of tension and hostilities, but also that they have an understanding of when and how those rules apply”.

The Woomera Manual gathers together legal experts specialised in the fields of international space law, international law on the use of force and the law of armed conflict, together with technical experts. Experts contribute in a personal capacity on the basis of their own conclusions as to the state of the law, independent of the official position or preference of any State or organisation.

The Woomera Manual on the International Law of Military Space Operations aims to articulate and clarify extant law applicable to military activities associated with the space domain, especially that which is relevant in periods of tension (when States and non-State actors may consider using force) or outright hostilities. The Manual will examine the circumstances in which operations associated with space infrastructure would be considered unlawful as a violation of the law on the use of force. It will also consider the responses available to States in reacting to such operations. Further, the Manual will discuss how the law of armed conflict governs operations that are conducted from, to or through outer space, should armed conflict break out. Ultimately, the Manual is meant to support a stable, rules-based global order, even in periods of tension and armed conflict. That is what we can say about the Woomera Manual.

The European Space Research Organisation

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The European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) was an international organisation founded by European States with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in outer space. It was founded in 1964. Between 1964 and 1975, ESRO developed eight small scientific satellites launched by NASA and started the realisation of seven others. Towards the end of its existence, the European Space Research Organisation had expanded its field of intervention to include space applications in the field of telecommunications and meteorology. ESRO has also carried out space-related studies by launching sounding rockets. Following a general overhaul of the European Space Program decided in 1973, the European Space Research Organisation was merged with ELDO to form the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1975.

The European Launcher Development Organisation

The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of outer space. It was established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris. One of its two ancestors is the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO). The European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) is a former European space research organization. It was first developed in order to establish a satellite launch vehicle for Europe. The three-stage rocket developed was named Europa, after the mythical Greek god. Overall, there were ten launches that occurred under ELDO’s funding. Initially, the launch site was in Woomera, Australia, but was later moved to the French site Kourou, in French Guiana. The program was created to replace the Blue Streak Missile Program after its cancellation in 1960. In 1974, after an unsuccessful satellite launch, the program was merged with the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) to form the European Space Agency (ESA).

After World War II, many European scientists left Western Europe in order to work with the United States of America or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Although the 1950s boom made it possible for Western European countries to invest in research and specifically in space-related activities, Western European scientists realised solely national projects would not be able to compete with the two main superpowers. In 1958, only months after the Sputnik shock, Italian Edoardo Amaldi (September 5, 1908 – December 5, 1989) and French Pierre Victor Auger, two prominent members of the Western European scientific community, met to discuss the foundation of a common Western European space agency. They recommended that European governments set up a “purely scientific” joint organisation for space research, taking CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research, derived from the name Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire) as a model.

Scientists from European countries, the “Groupe d’etudes européen pour la Collaboration dans le domaine des recherches spatiales” (GEERS), with Harrie Massey (May 16, 1908 – November 27, 1983), an Australian mathematical physicist who worked primarily in the fields of atomic and atmospheric physics, as President, and Pierre Auger as Secretary, set up a commission in December 1960 in Meyrin, Switzerland, at which government representatives would decide on possibilities of European cooperation in outer space. European States decided in 1962 to have two different agencies, one to develop a launch system, the European Launch Development Organisation (ELDO) and the other, the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), to develop spacecraft.

The European Space Research Organisation Convention

The origins of a joint European space effort are generally traced back to a number of initiatives taken in 1959 and 1960 by a small group of scientists and science administrators, catalysed by two friends, physicists and scientific statesmen, the Italian Edoardo Amaldi (September 5, 1908 – December 5, 1989) and the Frenchman Pierre Victor Auger (May 14, 1899 – December 25, 1993). Neither Amaldi nor Auger was a stranger to the cause of scientific collaboration on a European scale. Indeed, it was they who, in the early 1950s, were key actors in the process which led to the setting up of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Within a year of the first formal discussions being held amongst scientists, by the end of the 1950s, European governments had set up a preparatory commission in order to explore the possibilities for a joint space research effort. The European Preparatory Commission for Space Research or Commission Préparatoire Européenne de Recherche Spatiale (COPERS) held its first session in Paris in 1961. Its first task was to create the organs needed to define the scientific programme and the necessary infrastructure of the envisaged organisation, to draw up its budget, and to prepare a Convention.

Created on June 14, 1962 and set up in 1964 with the aim of producing scientific satellites, ESRO was much more successful than the other European space organisation created at the same time to develop a European launcher, ELDO. At the instigation of its first general director, the French physicist Pierre Victor Auger, ESRO established a strong central administration and its own technical centres, which would later constitute the foundations of the European Space Agency (ESA). The CONVENTION FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A EUROPEAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANIZATION dates back to June 14, 1962. Article I on the Organisation states that “A European Space Research Organisation is hereby established”. It also states that “The Headquarters of the Organisation shall be at Paris”. Article II on the Purpose affirms that “The purpose of the Organisation shall be to provide for, and to promote, collaboration among European States in space research and technology, exclusively for peaceful purposes”.

Article V on the Programme and Activities enounces that “In order to fulfil its purpose the Organisation shall carry out a programme of scientific research and related technological activities. It may in particular: (a) design and construct sounding rocket payloads, satellites and space probes, carrying instruments provided by Member States or by the Organisation itself; (b) procure launching vehicles and arrange for their launching; (c) provide means for the reception, collection, reduction and analysis of data; (d) support research and development as required for its programme; (e) promote and provide for contacts between scientists and engineers, their interchange and advanced training; (f) disseminate information among Member States; (g) co-operate with research institutions in the Member States and assist in the co-ordination of their efforts; (h) make contractual arrangements for the use of launching ranges for rockets and satellites and other facilities available in Member or other States”.

Article VIII on Special Projects declares that “If, outside the agreed programme but within the scope of the Organisation, one or more Member States engage in a project in connection with which the Council decides, by a two-thirds majority of all Member States, to make available the assistance of the Organisation or the use of its facilities, the resulting cost to the Organisation shall be refunded to the Organisation by the State or States concerned”.

Article IX on Organs states that “The Organisation shall consist of a Council and a Director-General assisted by a staff” and Article X on The Council specifies that “The Council shall be composed of representatives of the Member States. Each Member State may be represented by not more than two delegates, who may be accompanied by advisers. The Council shall meet at least twice a year. The meetings shall be held at the seat of the Organisation’s Headquarters, unless otherwise decided by the Council. The Council shall elect a chairman and two vice-chairmen, who shall hold office for one year and may be re-elected on not more than two consecutive occasions. The Council shall, subject to the provisions of this Convention and among other dispositions, determine the Organisation’s policy in scientific, technical and administrative matters”.

The ESRO Convention entered into force on March 20, 1964. The ten founding states were Belgium, Denmark, France, (the Federal Republic of) Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The first meeting of the Council opened in Paris three days later with Harrie Massey in the Chair. Pierre Auger was appointed ESRO’s first Director General. Thus it was up to one of its main founding father, to lead the European Space Research Organisation during the critical first three years of existence. The ESRO convention outlined the Organisation as an entity exclusively devoted to scientific pursuits. This was the case for most of its lifetime but in the final years, before the formation of ESA, the European Space Agency, ESRO began a programme in the field of telecommunications.

The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC)

The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), located in Noordwijk (the Netherlands), was founded in 1968. The centre was to be the core of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO). Its responsibilities included the engineering and testing of satellites and their payloads, the integration of scientific instruments in these payloads, and making arrangements for their launch. In some cases member States were to produce the scientific instruments for ESRO or produce them as part of their own national effort and compensate ESTEC for its service. In practice, national organisations simply used ESTEC as a service organisation and left it to pay for their efforts from the ESRO budget.

Esrange

Esrange Space Center (short form Esrange) is a rocket range and research centre located about forty kilometres east of the town of Kiruna in northern Sweden. It is a base for scientific research with high-altitude balloons, investigation of the aurora borealis, sounding rocket launches, and satellite tracking, among other things. Located two hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle and surrounded by a vast wilderness, its geographic location is ideal for many of these purposes. Esrange was built in 1964 by ESRO, the European Space Research Organisation, which later became the European Space Agency by merging with ELDO, the European Launcher Development Organisation. The first rocket launch from Esrange occurred on November 19, 1966. In 1972, ownership was transferred to the newly started Swedish Space Corporation.

In the 1960s, Esrange was established as an ESRO sounding rocket launching range located in Kiruna (Sweden). This location was chosen because it was generally agreed that it was important to carry out a sounding rocket programme in the auroral zone, where most auroras occur, and for this reason it was essential that ESRO equipped itself with a suitable range in the northern latitudes. Access to Kiruna was good by air, road and rail, and the launching range was relatively close to the town of Kiruna. Finally and perhaps decisively, Esrange could be located near Kiruna Geophysical Observatory (subsequently renamed to Swedish Institute of Space Physics). There had been Swedish rocket activities previously, between 1961 and 1964, however, the rocket activity in Sweden did not gain thrust until after ESRO established Esrange in 1964. During ESRO’s period, more than one hundred and fifty rockets were launched. They supported many branches of European research, but the emphasis was on atmospheric and ionospheric research.

The scientific activities

The ESRO convention outlined the organisation as one which would be solely devoted to outer space science. As a consequence, scientific work was the main area of ESRO’s early operations. As the organisation and its capabilities matured, it shifted from a strictly scientific programme to one where applicational activities played a more dominant role. The fact that sounding rockets are relatively inexpensive, have a short lead time, provide a test bed for more ambitious project, and have a low risk of failure, made them an ideal first project for the newly formed European Space Research Organisation. The first two ESRO sounding rockets were launched in 1964 from Salto di Quirra, a restricted weapons testing range and rocket launching site near Perdasdefogu (Sardinia, Italy), the largest military range in Italy. The first launch from Esrange was made in November 1966. From this point onward, the frequency of sounding rocket launches increased dramatically. The British Skylark and French Centaure were the main rockets utilised for the programme.

The first satellites of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) concentrated on solar and cosmic radiation and its interaction with Earth. ESRO-2 looked at solar X-rays, cosmic radiation and Earth’s radiation belts, while ESRO-1A simultaneously examined how the auroral zones responded to geomagnetic and solar activity. Direct measurements were made as these high-energy charged particles plunged from the outer magnetosphere into the atmosphere. ESRO-1B was launched into a lower, circular orbit – meaning that re-entry was inevitable after a few weeks – to provide complementary measurements. ESRO-1A was launched on October 3, 1968 and re-entered on June 26, 1970; ESRO-1B was launched on October 1, 1969 and re-entered on November 23, 1969.

The European Launcher Development Organisation

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The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of outer space. It was established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris. One of its two ancestors is the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO). The European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) is a former European space research organization. It was first developed in order to establish a satellite launch vehicle for Europe. The three-stage rocket developed was named Europa, after the mythical Greek god. Overall, there were ten launches that occurred under ELDO’s funding. Initially, the launch site was in Woomera, Australia, but was later moved to the French site Kourou, in French Guiana. The program was created to replace the Blue Streak Missile Program after its cancellation in 1960. In 1974, after an unsuccessful satellite launch, the program was merged with the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) to form the European Space Agency (ESA).

After World War II, many European scientists left Western Europe in order to work with the United States of America or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Although the 1950s boom made it possible for Western European countries to invest in research and specifically in space-related activities, Western European scientists realised solely national projects would not be able to compete with the two main superpowers. In 1958, only months after the Sputnik shock, Italian Edoardo Amaldi (September 5, 1908 – December 5, 1989) and French Pierre Auger, two prominent members of the Western European scientific community, met to discuss the foundation of a common Western European space agency. They recommended that European governments set up a “purely scientific” joint organisation for space research, taking CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research, derived from the name Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire) as a model.

Scientists from European countries, the “Groupe d’etudes européen pour la Collaboration dans le domaine des recherches spatiales” (GEERS), with Harrie Massey (May 16, 1908 – November 27, 1983), an Australian mathematical physicist who worked primarily in the fields of atomic and atmospheric physics, as President, and Pierre Auger as Secretary, set up a commission in December 1960 in Meyrin, Switzerland, at which government representatives would decide on possibilities of European cooperation in outer space. European States decided in 1962 to have two different agencies, one to develop a launch system, the European Launch Development Organisation (ELDO) and the other, the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), to develop spacecraft.

The Blue Streak Missile Program

During the early 1950s, the British government had identified the need to develop its own series of ballistic missiles due to advances being made in this field, particularly by the Soviet Union and the United States of America. A British programme to develop such a missile, named Blue Streak, was promptly initiated; however, there were key questions over the then-relatively unknown scenario of what such a vehicle would encounter when attempting re-entry to the atmosphere, there were fears that such a vehicle might simply burn up like a meteor and therefore be unachievable.

The de Havilland Propellers Blue Streak was a British medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), and later the first stage of the Europa satellite launch vehicle. The project was intended to maintain an independent British nuclear deterrent, replacing the V bomber fleet which would become obsolete by 1965. The operational requirement for the missile was issued in 1955 and the design was complete by 1957. During development, it became clear that the missile system was too expensive and too vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike. The missile project was cancelled in 1960. Partly to avoid political embarrassment from the cancellation, the British Government proposed that the rocket be used as the first stage of a civilian satellite launcher called Black Prince (a proposed British-led satellite expendable launch system, it would have made heavy use of the preceding Blue Streak missile and the Black Knight test rocket development programmes, as well as some new elements, to produce a British-built launcher capable of deploying medium-sized payloads into orbit). As the cost was thought to be too great for the UK alone international collaboration was sought. This led to the formation of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), with Blue Streak used as the first stage of a carrier rocket named Europa.

The Convention for the Establishment of a European Organisation for the Development and Construction of Space vehicle Launchers

The Convention for the Establishment of a European Organisation for the Development and Construction of Space vehicle Launchers was adopted on March 29, 1962 in London. The States parties to this Convention were “Conscious of the role which space activities were destined to play in the progress of science and technology”, “Desired to harmonise their policies in space matters with a view to common action for peaceful purposes”, and “Have decided to co-operate in the development of space vehicle launchers and to study their scientific and commercial application”.

CHAPTER I concerning THE ORGANISATION, in its Article 1, states that “A European Organisation for the Development and Construction of Space vehicle Launchers is hereby established, and that the seat of the Organisation shall be in Paris”. Article 2 enounces that “The Organisation shall as its aim the development and construction of space vehicle launchers and their equipment suitable for practical applications and for supply to eventual users. The Organisation shall concern itself only with peaceful applications of such launchers and equipment. The results of the work of the Organisation shall be freely accessible to Member States, in accordance with the provisions of this Convention. The Organisation shall seek to promote the co-ordinated development of techniques relevant to its activity in the Member States and shall assist Member States, on request, to make use of the techniques used or developed in the course of its work”.

Article 7 concerning Access to Work of the Organisation says that “Member States which contribute to the cost of a programme of the Organisation shall have the right to designate to the Organisation a limited number of individuals to participate in the work on that programme proceeding in the governmental establishments of other Member States, including the firing trials at Woomera, Australia; to participate in the work on that programme proceeding in non-governmental organisations, subject to the agreement of such organisations; provided in either case that the number and qualifications of such individuals, including their qualifications in the matter of security, and the conditions of such participation are approved by the Government of the Member State within whose jurisdiction such establishments and organisations are located. Such approval shall not be unreasonably withheld”.

CHAPTER IV on PROGRAMMES, in its Article 16 about Initial Programme and Study of Further Programmes, affirms that “The Organisation shall undertake as its initial programme the design, development and construction of a space vehicle launcher using as its first stage the rocket Blue Streak and with a French rocket as its second stage. The design and development of the other parts of the system and of a first series of satellite test vehicles shall be carried out under such arrangements as the Council may decide insofar as no other decisions have been taken as recorded in the Protocol annexed to this Convention. In the initial programme, the development firings of the first stage and of the complete launcher shall be conducted at Woomera, Australia. The development firings of the second and third stages shall be carried out wherever economic and technical conditions are most favourable. When the Organisation conies into existence, it shall continue the study of future possibilities and the need for launchers and ranges. This study shall include experimental research. After a period of two years a report on the study shall be presented to the Council. The Council shall then consider what new programme it would be desirable to undertake and also the orientation of the initial programme, having regard to the progress already obtained and the state of the art. The initial programme shall be financed in accordance with the provisions of the Financial Protocol annexed to this Convention”.

ELDO began work in 1962 and was formally signed into existence in 1964, bringing together Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (with Australia as an associate member). The United Kingdom was to provide the first stage of the launcher (Blue Streak), France the second (Coralie), and Germany the third stage (Astris). Experimental satellites would be developed in Italy and Belgium, telemetry and remote controls in the Netherlands, and launches would take place from Woomera in Australia.

Woomera, South Australia

In common usage, Woomera refers to the RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC), a major Australian military and civil aerospace facility and operation located in South Australia, approximately four hundred and fifty kilometres north-west of Adelaide. During the 1950s, the Black Knight rocket (as a component of Blue Streak) was tested at the range. The first rocket launch occurred in 1957, and continued until the last satellite launch in 1971. On March 22, 1949, a first missile was launched. Woomera was Europeanized with the arrival of the Europa rocket in 1964. On June 5 of the same year, the Blue Streak missile, which became the first floor of the European launcher, was successfully tested. Other flights will follow until November 30, 1968, the day that Europe tried for the first time to launch a satellite with a Europa 1 rocket. This launch ended in a failure. Woomera then opened up for cooperation with the United States of America. Further missiles will be fired until the launch complexes’ closing.

The Europa rocket

The “Europa 1” or “ELDO-A” rocket was an early expendable launch system of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), which was the precursor to the European Space Agency (ESA). It was developed with the aim to delivering space access technology, and more specifically to facilitate the deployment of European-wide telecommunication and meteorological satellites into orbit. The Blue Streak missile predated the Europa programme, having originally been developed by Britain primarily for military purposes, however it was cancelled in 1960. Efforts to repurpose the Blue Streak, such as the studied Black Prince expendable launch system, eventually cumulated in the multinational Europa programme. Workshare on the programme was shared between the various members of the ELDO based upon their financial contributions. The Europa launcher itself primarily consisted of the Blue Streak, Coralie, and Astris rocket stages. “Cora” is the name of a single-stage French experimental rocket, which was propelled with nitrogen tetroxide and UDMH. The Cora rocket served for component testing for the planned Europa Rocket, which was eventually built by the European Launcher Development Organisation, the predecessor to the modern European Space Agency. The first two launches of the Cora rocket were made from the Béatrice launch pad in Algeria, and the third and last Cora rocket was launched from Biscarrosse (Landes).

The programme proceeded to perform multiple test launches, however these frequently resulted in partial failures. In addition, Britain decided to pull out of the ELDO organisation, and thus Europa, to instead focus on the rival British Black Arrow launcher instead. This led to the replacement of the Blue Streak by the French-built Diamant section. However, confidence in the programme had diminished due to the poor reliability figures, and this led to its termination. While Europa was ultimately cancelled, the ambition for such a launcher was still present and supported by the majority of ELDO members and, following its reformation into the ESA in 1974, the agency proceeded to develop the Ariane family of launchers, would which prove to be a commercial success with hundreds of launches performed.

Concluding remarks on the European Launcher Development Organisation

Today, among the institutions in the family of science organisations in Europe, the European Space Agency stands out as a shining example that international co-operation in science and technology can work. Building on the lessons learned from ESRO and ELDO, ESA has become an outstandingly successful model of European scientific and technical collaboration. Its contribution to the development of a collective European space capability has been fundamental. The Agency has played an important role not only in space but also in uniting Europe.

John Glenn orbits the Earth

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John Glenn (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. He entered the United States Marine Corps in 1942 and participated in the Second World War as a fighter pilot. At the end of the conflict, he pursued a career as a military pilot and participated in the Korean War. Becoming a test pilot, he joined in 1959 the first group of astronauts selected by the US space agency, NASA. On February 20, 1962, he was the first American to conduct an orbital flight around the Earth as part of Mercury’s Friendship 7 mission, nearly ten months after the inaugural flight of the Soviet Yuri Gagarin. In 1998, at the age of seventy-seven, he flew one last space flight aboard the Space Shuttle as part of mission STS-95.

John Glenn

In the late 1950s, John Glenn began to take an interest in the space field that was developing at that time. He got to participate in work done by NASA, the newly created US space agency, on the development of a simulator requiring the expertise of a pilot. Subsequently, he participated in the design of the Mercury ship as an expert. When NASA decided to select its first astronauts from military pilots in 1959, he was one of one hundred volunteer pilots.

Project Mercury

The Mercury program is the first US space program to have sent an American into outer space. It was initiated in 1958, a few days after the creation of the NASA space agency, and was completed in 1963. On November 5, 1958, the Space Task Group (STG) was established at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, with Robert Gilruth as its director. On November 26, NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan and his deputy, Hugh Dryden, adopted a suggestion by Abe Silverstein, the director of Space Flight Development at STG, that the manned spaceflight project be called Project Mercury. The name was publicly announced by Glennan on December 17, 1958, the 55th anniversary Wright brothers’ first flight. The program’s objectives were to place a man in orbit around the Earth, to study the effects of the weightlessness on the human body and to develop a reliable recovery system of the spacecraft and its crew. Six manned outer space flights (and nineteen outer space flights without astronauts) took place between 1959 and 1963: two suborbital flights launched by a Mercury-Redstone rocket and four orbital flights launched by an Atlas rocket. The Mercury 3 mission (May 5, 1961) with Alan Shepard on board, was the first manned US outer space flight. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, will not fail, despite sometimes serious failures of the Mercury capsule.

The Mercury space capsule was produced by McDonnell Aircraft, and carried supplies of water, food and oxygen for about one day in a pressurized cabin. Mercury flights were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, on launch vehicles modified from the Redstone and Atlas D missiles. The capsule was fitted with a launch escape rocket to carry it safely away from the launch vehicle in case of a failure. The flight was designed to be controlled from the ground via the Manned Space Flight Network, a system of tracking and communications stations; back-up controls were outfitted on board. The Mercury capsule was a one and a half ton, cone-shaped, minimalist spacecraft designed to accommodate a single astronaut and equipped with slewing engines for limited manoeuvring when placed in orbit, as well as retrorockets for re-entry into the atmosphere. At the base of the cone was placed a heat shield made of an ablative material that allowed the vessel to withstand the temperature generated by its atmospheric re-entry at very high speed in the dense layers of the atmosphere. The recovery of the ship was done in open sea.

The Mercury project gained popularity, and its missions were followed by millions on radio and TV around the world. Its success laid the groundwork for Project Gemini, which carried two astronauts in each capsule and perfected space docking manoeuvres essential for manned lunar landings in the subsequent Apollo program announced a few weeks after the first manned Mercury flight.

The Mercury Seven

The Mercury Seven were the group of seven Project Mercury astronauts announced by NASA on April 9, 1959. They are also referred to as the Original Seven or Astronaut Group 1. They piloted the manned spaceflights of the Mercury program from May 1961 to May 1963. These seven original American astronauts were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. Members of the group flew on all of the NASA crewed orbital programs of the 20th century – Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle (the last survivor of Mercury Seven, John Glenn, passed away on December 8, 2016, at the age of ninety-five).

Although NASA planned a competition for its first astronauts, President Dwight D. Eisenhower insisted that all candidates be test pilots, which excluded women. Because of the small space inside the Mercury spacecraft, the candidates had to measure less than one meter and eighty centimetres and weigh less than eighty-two kilograms. They also had to be under forty, hold a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, have one thousand and five hundred flying hours and be qualified to fly jet aircraft. After taking several series of physical and psychological tests, John Glenn was selected to be part of the first group of seven astronauts.

He received a diversified training including both theoretical courses in the field of space and training sessions in simulators. At the same time, like his colleagues, he was assigned to a working group dedicated to the design of the cockpit and, as such, took part in the design of the Apollo program. For the first two missions of the Mercury program, which were simple suborbital flights, he was a substitute for astronauts Shepard and Grissom.

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth

Glenn was assigned to the third mission of the Mercury program which is to be the first manned orbital flight in the United States of America. The US military was considering, as part of a larger project known as Operation Northwoods (a project of clandestine false-flag military operations designed to manipulate public opinion; it was to hurt or kill US citizens and then accuse Cubans and invade their country), that in case the flight went wrong and Glenn was killed, to attribute the accident to an action by Fidel Castro’s government and justify to the public the invasion of Cuba.

After a launch postponed several times as a result of equipment malfunction or weather problems, John Glenn took off on February 20, 1962 from the Cape Canaveral base in Florida aboard the Mercury-Atlas 6 capsule (the flight was scheduled for December 1961, and had already been delayed twenty times) as part of the Friendship 7 mission (carried to orbit by an Atlas LV-3B launch vehicle lifting off from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida).

The Atlas LV-3B, Atlas D Mercury Launch Vehicle or Mercury-Atlas Launch Vehicle, was a man-rated expendable launch system used as part of the United States Project Mercury to send astronauts into low Earth orbit (LEO). Manufactured by American aircraft manufacturing company Convair, it was derived from the SM-65D Atlas missile, and was a member of the Atlas family of rockets. The Atlas D missile was the natural choice for Project Mercury since it was the only launch vehicle in the US arsenal that could put the spacecraft into orbit and also had a large number of flights from which to gather data. But its reliability was far from perfect and Atlas launches ending in explosions were an all-too common sight at Cape Canaveral. The Atlas had been originally designed as a weapon system.

After three orbits, the ship decelerated and began the very violent phase that characterizes the re-entry into the atmosphere. Glenn saw pieces of the retrorocket pass through the portholes. The speed had dropped enough at this point so that the heat shield could stay in place. Glenn splashed down safely after four hours, fifty-five minutes and twenty-three seconds of flight. He carried a note on the flight which read “I am a stranger. I come in peace. Take me to your leader and there will be a massive reward for you in eternity” in several languages, in case he landed near southern Pacific Ocean islands.

As the first American in orbit, Glenn became a national hero, met President John F. Kennedy, and received a ticker-tape parade in New York reminiscent of those honouring Charles Lindbergh and other heroes. He became “so valuable to the nation as an iconic figure”, according to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, that Kennedy would not “risk putting him back in space again”. Glenn’s fame and political potential were noted by the Kennedys, and he became a friend of the Kennedy family. On February 23, 1962, President Kennedy gave him the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his Friendship 7 flight.

In 1995, Glenn was reading Space Physiology and Medicine, a book written by NASA doctors. He realized that many changes that occur to physical attributes during space flight, such as loss of bone and muscle mass and blood plasma, are the same as changes that occur due to aging. Glenn thought NASA should send an older person on a shuttle mission, and thought that it should be him. Starting in 1995, he began lobbying NASA director Dan Goldin for the mission. Goldin said he would consider it if there was a scientific reason, and if Glenn could pass the same physical examination the younger astronauts took. Glenn performed research on the subject, and passed the physical examination. On January 16, 1998, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin announced that Glenn would be part of the STS-95 crew; this made him, at age seventy-seven, the oldest person to fly in space. He became the oldest astronaut in History.

The 1963 Declaration of Legal Principles

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The Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, RES 1962 (XVIII), General Assembly 18th session, December 13, 1963, is the second important text concerning Space Law. It is a resolution that was adopted by the General Assembly in 1963. The first important decision concerning Space Law dates back to December 20, 1961. It is the General Assembly Resolution 1721 (XVI) on the International Co-operation in the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The latter Declaration reaffirms and expands the scope of the earlier one. The principles contained in it represent the consensus and maximum agreement attainable by the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer-Space established by the Assembly to deal with technical co-operation of states and the legal regulation of outer space.

The Declaration proclaims the freedom of all States to explore outer space and enounces that International Law and the Charter should govern the activities of States in outer space. It establishes broad principles concerning the responsibility of States and international organizations for activities in outer space, jurisdiction and control of objects launched, re-entry, landing and return of astronauts and vehicles, and liability for injury or damage caused by space vehicles.

The General Assembly has adopted since 1958 many resolutions entitled “International co-operation in the peaceful uses of outer space”. These resolutions have laid out the framework for the deliberations in the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the activities to be undertaken within the Programme on Space Applications of the Office for Outer Space Affairs. While resolutions adopted by the General Assembly are not legally binding, many resolutions dealing with issues related to outer space have offered valuable guidance to States on the conduct of space activities. Many provisions of the General Assembly resolutions related to outer space have become widely accepted by the International Space Community.

The United Nations General Assembly

The General Assembly is one of the six main organs of the United Nations, the only one in which all Member States have equal representation: one nation, one vote. Today, all one hundred and ninety-three Member States of the United Nations are represented in this unique forum to discuss and work together on a wide array of international issues covered by the UN Charter, such as development, peace and security, international law, etc. Each year, all the Members meet in the General Assembly Hall in New York for the annual General Assembly session. The General Assembly (GA) is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. Decisions on important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority. Decisions on other questions are by simple majority. Each country has one vote. Some Member States in arrear of payment may be granted the right to vote.

When a United Nations General Assembly resolution first alluded to space activities, the day after Sputnik I was sent, it was with the major concern of military danger. That’s why it was the resolution on REGULATION, LIMITATION AND BALANCED REDUCTION OF ALL ARMED FORCES AND ALL ARMAMENTS; CONCLUSION OF AN INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION (TREATY) ON THE REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS AND THE PROHIBITION OF ATOMIC, HYDROGEN AND OTHER WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION – 1148 (XII) of November 14, 1957, which provided the study of a system of control intended to make sure that the launching of machines in outer space would only be used for peaceful and scientific purposes: “The joint study of an inspection system designed to ensure that the sending of objects through outer space shall be exclusively for peaceful and scientific purposes”. From the beginning of 1958, correspondence was exchanged between Dwight D. Eisenhower (United States of America) and Nikita Khrushchev (USSR); in February of the same year, a proposal by the Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker, suggested the creation by the General Assembly of an International Body for Outer Space. This culminated with the Soviet request of March 15, 1958 and the United States request of September 2, 1958, referring to the General Assembly the need of international cooperation in space matters.

The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS)

The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the General Assembly in 1959 to govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity: for peace, security and development. The Committee was tasked with reviewing international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space, studying space-related activities that could be undertaken by the United Nations, encouraging space research programmes, and studying legal problems arising from the exploration of outer space. The Committee was instrumental in the creation of the five treaties and five principles of outer space. International cooperation in space exploration and the use of space technology applications to meet global development goals are discussed in the Committee every year. Owing to rapid advances in space technology, the space agenda is constantly evolving. The Committee provides a unique platform at the global level to monitor and discuss these developments. The Committee has two subsidiary bodies: the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee, and the Legal Subcommittee, both established in 1961.

Its first session was held in May and June of 1959 and produced a useful account of current activities in outer space. Some of the suggestions of this session provided a basis for follow-up action later in the United Nations. However, only thirteen of the eighteen countries on the Committee attended this session. Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union refused to attend, expressing dissatisfaction with the composition of the Committee. India and the United Arab Republic also did not attend. There is widespread interest in the United Nations in fostering international co-operation in outer space for two basic reasons: first, to maximize co-operation between the two major space Powers despite their political differences; and second, to encourage the increased peaceful uses of outer space to benefit all countries irrespective of the stage of their economic or scientific development. Countries realize that activities going forward in outer space – satellites helping to forecast the weather, to increase communications, to improve navigational conditions, to test for radioactivity, to do basic research – will all make their impact on everyone on this earth with increasing force.

During the 1085th plenary meeting that took place on December 20, 1961 in the General Assembly Hall in New York, United States of America, the General Assembly of the United Nations, after an introduction reaffirming general principles (“Recognizing the common interest of mankind in furthering the peaceful uses of outer space and the urgent need to strengthen international co-operation in this important field, Believing that the exploration and use of outer space should be only for the betterment of mankind and to the benefit of States irrespective of the stage of their economic or scientific development”), enacted International Space Law’s basis.

The Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space

Since 1957 when the Soviet Union launched a satellite, the exploration of outer space has engaged the attention of mankind and has raised a number of questions vital to the peace and security of the world. The Soviet experiment was soon followed by similar ones on the part of the United States of America. International coordination of activities in outer space has fallen on the United Nations as the most representative organ of the international community.

Let’s study the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, adopted without vote by the General Assembly in its 18th session, RES 1962 (XVIII), 1280th plenary meeting, December 13, 1963. The declaration was at the time not legally binding, but rather represented a collective affirmation of the guiding principles to which Member States proposed to adhere. Already at this early stage of multilateral space interaction, States were using political tools to create pressure for certain types of behaviour in space. The first sentence of this Declaration concerns “the great prospects opening up before mankind as a result of man’s entry into outer space”. Let’s recall that since Gagarin and Shepard in 1961, human outer space flights have become possible.

Looking at the Declaration of Principles Governing Space, the following principles, “United Nation’s bla bla bla”, reaffirm classical ideas: “the common interest of all mankind in the progress of the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, the exploration and use of outer space should be carried on for the betterment of mankind and for the benefit of States irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, to contribute to broad international cooperation in the scientific as well as in the legal aspects of exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and that such co-operation will contribute to the development of mutual understanding and to the strengthening of friendly relations between nations and peoples”.

The General Assembly then recalls three precedent resolutions: resolution 110 (II) of November 3, 1947, which condemned propaganda designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, and considering that the aforementioned resolution is applicable to outer space, resolutions 1721 (XVI) of December 20, 1961 and 1802 (XVII), of December 14, 1962, on International Co-operation in the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, adopted unanimously by the States Members of the United Nations.

The General Assembly then recalls three precedent resolutions: resolution 110 (II) of November 3, 1947, which condemned propaganda designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, and considering that the aforementioned resolution is applicable to outer space, resolutions 1721 (XVI) of December 20, 1961 and 1802 (XVII), of December 14, 1962, on International Co-operation in the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, adopted unanimously by the States Members of the United Nations. The General Assembly then enounces nine different points that should guide States in the exploration and use of outer space:

1. “The exploration and use of outer space shall be carried on for the benefit and in the interests of all mankind”.

2. “Outer space and celestial bodies are free for exploration and use by all States on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law”.

3. “Outer space and celestial bodies are not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means”.

4. “The activities of States in the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried on in accordance with international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, in the interest of maintaining international peace and security and promoting international cooperation and understanding”.

5. “States bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, whether carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried on in conformity with the principles set forth in the present Declaration. The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the State concerned. When activities are carried on in outer space by an international organization, responsibility for compliance with the principles set forth in this Declaration shall be borne by the international organization and by the States participating in it”.

6. “In the exploration and use of outer space, States shall be guided by the principle of co-operation and mutual assistance and shall conduct all their activities in outer space with due regard for the corresponding interests of other States. If a State has reason to believe that an outer space activity or experiment planned by it or its nationals would cause potentially harmful interference with activities of other States in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, it shall undertake appropriate international consultations before proceeding with any such activity or experiment. A State which has reason to believe that an outer space activity or experiment planned by another State would cause potentially harmful interference with activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space may request consultation concerning the activity or experiment”.

7. “The State on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control over such object, and any personnel thereon, while in outer space. Ownership of objects launched into outer space, and of their component parts, is not affected by their passage through outer space or by their return to the earth. Such objects or component parts found beyond the limits of the State of registry shall be returned to that State, which shall furnish identifying data upon request prior to return”.

8. “Each State which launches or procures the launching of an object into outer space, and each State from whose territory or facility an object is launched, is internationally liable for damage to a foreign State or to its natural or juridical persons by such object or its component parts on the earth, in air space, or in outer space”.

9. “States shall regard astronauts as envoys of mankind in outer space, and shall render to them all possible assistance in the event of accident, distress, or emergency landing on the territory of a foreign State or on the high seas. Astronauts who make such a landing shall be safely and promptly returned to the State of registry of their space vehicle”.

The Declaration of Legal Principles commanded so much widespread support that, just five years later, the principles of the declaration were formalized by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) into the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (the Outer Space Treaty), the instrument which is considered to form the basis of outer space law. The adoption of the Outer Space Treaty marked the beginning of a period that saw a significant amount of political will aimed at the adoption of formal legal instruments. The next few decades saw the adoption of four more treaties that dealt with specific aspects of outer space activities, although each received less and less support from the international community.

The first four principles provided in this resolution have been followed and repeated by the other United Nations treaties discussed above, namely, that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried on for the benefit of, and in the interests of, all mankind. That outer space and celestial bodies are free for exploration and use by all States. That outer space and celestial bodies are not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty. And that the States’ activities be carried on in accordance with international law, including the charter of the UN. Similarly, it contains the principle of cooperation and mutual assistance among States, matters on jurisdiction over space objects, the provisions for liability for damage to a foreign State or two its natural or juridical persons by launched space objects, and the principle of regarding astronauts as envoys of mankind in outer space have all been followed and repeated by the UN treaties.

Created largely through the efforts of the United States of America, COPUOS gave direction to public International Space Law by formulating the 1963 Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of the States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space. The 1963 Declaration is clearly the foundation of the five multilateral treaties which presently comprise International Space Law. The seventeen articles of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (adopted on December 19, 1966, entered into force on October 10, 1967) closely follow the 1963 Declaration stating that exploration and use of outer space is for the benefit of all mankind and must be accomplished in accordance with international law and in the interest of peace and international cooperation. It makes astronauts envoys entitled to assistance and safe return and places legal responsibility for damages on launching States. Further, it provides that launching States maintain jurisdiction over space vehicles and persons on board.

The ten articles comprising the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (adopted on December 19, 1967, entered into force on December 3, 1968) are an elaboration of the principles set out in the 1963 Declaration. Subsequently, the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (entered into force on September 1, 1972) was offered for signature by the United Nations General Assembly. This Treaty set up a regime of absolute liability for damages caused by space objects on the Earth’s surface or to aircraft in flight. Just as the preceding three treaties found their bases in the 1963 Declaration, the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (entered into force on September 15, 1976) is also premised on the 1963 Declaration. The twelve articles comprising this Convention mandate that every State or international intergovernmental organization establish a registry of objects launched into Earth orbit or beyond. The contents of the registry and conditions of its maintenance are left to the launching State except that the launching State must notify the Secretary General of the United Nations of the existence of the registry. The last treaty to be considered is the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (adopted on December 5, 1979). The Moon Treaty, like those mentioned above, derives its basic tenets from the 1963 Declaration. Its purpose, however, is more ideological than practical. The major thrust of the Moon Treaty is to reserve and preserve scientific information gained in exploration of celestial bodies for dissemination to other State signatories.

Since the adoption of these instruments, the politics of space have significantly evolved. Cold War divisions no longer dominate, new actors with developmental rather than prestige- and security-related motivations are entering the domain, and States are now treating space as a cross-sectoral domain encompassing civil, military, commercial, and development aspects. As such, the balance of power in outer space has shifted significantly. This has resulted in little to no progress being made on the development of formal legal instruments intended to update the existing outer space legal regime. This is what we can say about the Declaration of Principles Governing Space.

An interview with Jacques Blamont

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This interview of Jacques Blamont was conducted by Louis de Gouyon Matignon for space legal issues on Thursday, January 31, 2019 in the CNES office of Jacques Blamont in Paris, France.

Hello Jacques Blamont and thank you for receiving me. Could you summarize the birth of the French space program?

Thank you very much. Yes, with pleasure. Basically, it all started with the desire of French President Charles De Gaulle to develop vectors for carrying atomic bombs to Moscow. After the refusal of the United States of America to help France develop its vectors, France decided in August 1959 to work alone. In September 1959 was created the Society of study and realization of ballistic missiles or Société d’étude et de réalisation d’engins balistiques (Sereb), a civilian entity whose objective was the realization of missiles carrying the French atomic weapon (the idea was then to send missiles from French submarines). In 1960, the Sereb discovered that the test gear could put into orbit about fifty kilograms. The Sereb decided to write a note on this subject which arrived on the desk of the French Prime Minister of the time, Michel Debré. He spoke about it to President De Gaulle and in August 1961, France decided that it would launch a satellite and that to do so, an organization would be created.

The National Center for Space Studies or Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES) was created and had as primary objective, to develop a maximum of applications exploiting the capacities of the Diamant rocket. On November 26, 1965, the first French satellite, Astérix, was launched by the Diamant-A rocket from the Hammaguir base, the Interarmy Special Vehicles Test Centre or Centre d’essais d’engins spéciaux (CEES), Bechar Province, French Algeria. France became the third world space power. FR-1, second French artificial satellite, was launched on December 6, 1965 by an American rocket Scout from the Vandenberg spaceport. CNES, initially created with modest objectives and few means, decided to become a real agency and set up a series of divisions under my responsibility, in order to understand all aspects of outer space.

Jacques Blamont, could you tell us about the creation of the Guiana Space Centre or Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG)?

I was the technical and scientific director of CNES since 1962. At that time, I was obsessed with the problem of the launch pad. The Evian agreements were to eject from July 1, 1962 France from the Hammaguir base. The Brigitte base, where was launched the first Diamant rocket on November 26, 1965, was located seven hundred kilometres south of Oran, in the Bechar province, in the Algerian Sahara. We were allowed to remain in Hammaguir, with all our prerogatives, until July 1, 1967, which gave us five years. But I thought we had to move. So I decided, six months after the creation of CNES, to look for a new place to establish our launch pad. I suggested French Guiana, knowing that we could not have, after 1967, stayed in Algeria. The French space activity was to develop on a national territory. Today, the Russians continue to use the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and it is a real problem for them; this is one of the reasons why Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to create the Vostochny cosmodrome, a Russian launch pad located in the Amur Oblast, in the Russian Far East (south-eastern Siberia) near the small town of Tsiolkovsky. The construction of this new launch pad has been decided to reduce Russia’s dependence on the Baikonur cosmodrome, which has the disadvantage of being in Kazakhstan since the break-up of the Soviet Union. I was not wrong in proposing French Guiana.

Robert Aubinière, a French soldier and aviator, commanded the Bechar base. He had welcomed me during the first Véronique launches. I told him about French Guiana and he went to talk with Georges Pompidou, then Prime Minister. We had permission to settle in Kourou, French Guiana. Fourteen sites had been studied at the time. It was not difficult to convince Georges Pompidou. This decision to install a launch pad in French Guiana changed CNES. The Algerian launch pad was military in nature, and the vectors were developed by Sereb. Based on Pompidou’s decision, CNES was about to acquire a technological status. We then accelerated the various projects and made many launches. Two years later, the French government pursued the Diamant sector and CNES became responsible for all French space activity. CNES has become since a privileged player. Militaries were at the time not interested in satellites and they had to leave Algeria where France had a very large number of people. They also had to transform the French colonial army into a modern army.

Jacques Blamont, why did you choose French Guiana?

French Guiana was a French territory, an essential condition for establishing a launch pad, which excluded certain solutions such as staying in Algeria. In addition, the geographic properties with respect to the opening of the firing angle were very favourable. We could fire from the equator up to ninety degrees. All orbits were possible. There is no other base in the world with this property. We can launch from equatorial angles to polar angles. The second reason was that we were close to the equator and thus, we gained almost thirty to forty percent on the payloads compared to Cape Kennedy and more than that, compared to Russian launches, since Baikonur is forty-five degrees from north latitude. Finally, the third reason was that French Guiana is below the latitude of the intertropical convergence zone: there are never hurricanes there while there are many in Cape Kennedy. We do not have hurricanes in Kourou, we cannot have any.

Among the other sites selected to build our launch pad were locations in the French West Indies and metropolitan France. In metropolitan France, we selected La Grande-Motte, near the Leucate pond, between the departments of Pyrénées-Orientales and Aude. At that time, we were building La Grande-Motte and it was explained to me that it would be a very good site with many possibilities in terms of development. But it was difficult for us to develop a potentially dangerous and delicate activity next to a big city like Montpellier. When I found myself in front of Georges Pompidou, I presented the French Guiana option and the La Grande-Motte option, knowing that the French Guiana option would prevail. Georges Pompidou understood that it would not be possible to shoot in metropolitan France because there would be a risk of significant debris (we thought that the first stage of the rockets could fall in Sicily, Italy) and the metropolitan launch pad only had one launch angle.

Jacques Blamont, could you tell us about the balloon exploration of Venus?

Yes, off course. I was at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), where I was working on a technical instrument, the first instrument to be launched into orbit by France. Tired, I fall asleep and, I dreamed of a bright disc with a very bright point that pulsated, which emitted. I woke up and said to myself: a balloon in the atmosphere of Venus! I therefore proposed to the USSR in 1967 to launch balloons in the atmosphere of Venus, using all the technology of our French program EOLE, an experimental meteorological program developed by CNES in cooperation with NASA, using both a satellite and balloons. The project involved using five hundred supercharged balloons in the Earth’s atmosphere and a satellite that would collect data. These balloons were launched with the United States of America in 1971 to make meteorological measurements where we had no data, mostly over the oceans. However, the USSR did not respond to my Venusian project. I spoke directly to Mstislav Keldych (who played a central role in the Soviet space program through his work in the fields of aerodynamics and space mechanics and was at the heart of all space decisions. His work in the field of applied mathematics were important and he became a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences at the age of 25, in 1946), who gave the project to his secretary.

Three or four years later, we finally started working. The Soviets, however, wanted only one very large, over-inflated balloon with a large payload. I then spoke at a Franco-Soviet meeting to Roald Sagdeev, director of the Space Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (IKI). I talked about Halley’s Comet coming in and told the Soviets that it was an opportunity for the USSR. Sagdeev ignited and began to change the mission of the Venus balloon immediately. All the scientists and professors of astrophysics were requisitioned to work on a mission which would consist of going on Venus then on the comet of Halley. Sagdeev decided to turn the big balloon into two small balloons, which was my initial proposition, like EOLE, a flotilla of little balloons. This decision led to a certain break with CNES, which did not welcome the project. The USSR continued with the idea of ​​two small balloons, and this project worked very well. The two probes of the Vega program launched in 1985 were a great success for the Soviet Union whose program of exploration of the solar system faded at that time. One of the fathers of this mission, an intimate friend, V. M. Linkin, died a few days ago. For me, this mission represents the greatest feat of Soviet astronautics. At the time, I could not place the Venusian project in the American space program, and that’s why I turned to the Soviets. I had great ambitions for Franco-Soviet cooperation, but France did not wish to collaborate further. The Soviets offered us the choice to participate in either a mission on the Moon or a mission in very eccentric orbit. We had chosen the mission in very eccentric orbit, the Roseau project. The events of May 1968, however, incidentally prompted the cessation of the first scientific experiment carried out in Franco-Soviet cooperation.

I wanted to do great things, especially on Mars. Mstislav Keldych had told me in 1976: let’s go to Mars together! But that did not interest the scientific advisers of President Charles De Gaulle. I wanted the Soviet Union to help France become one of the big players in planetary exploration, but it did not work. After the Venus episode, we did not do anything anymore.

Jacques Blamont, what about Mars?

We did not send a Martian balloon since the USSR collapsed. The balloon that was to be sent by CNES to Mars had to be very big, it had to be forty-five meters high. It was very technical, especially because of the lack of Martian atmosphere. The Soviet Union collapsed and everything was cancelled. Speaking of Mars, I remember that I had at the time, in the 1970s, met Wernher von Braun, for whom Mars was the most important goal.

And Clementine?

Clementine, officially called the Deep Space Program Science Experiment (DSPSE), was a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO, previously the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, or SDIO) and NASA. The project was initiated by the Department of Defense (DoD) in order to demonstrate the technology that the BMDO had allowed to develop. Everything was ultra-modern in it. It turned out that I had developed the first image compressor for a Martian mission, the first image compressor to be ever developed; it has since become an indispensable tool for any outer space mission. The image compressor had been developed by French Mécanique Aviation Traction or Matra, a French company covering a wide range of activities mainly related to automobiles, bicycles, aeronautics and weaponry. This instrument could multiply by fifteen the rate of transmittable bits. In order to demonstrate American’s advanced work, Clementine was sent into orbit for two months around the Moon and did an amazing work in digitally mapping our natural satellite. The only Lunar map that was available in the 1990s was the result of analogical pictures taken by the Apollo missions. Clementine, after two months, was reorbited towards an asteroid to take pictures of it.

I remember attending in Washington, D.C., a Committee on Space Research (COSPAR)’s General Assembly. It was in the beginning of the 1990s. Walking in a hallway, I met a friend of mine, a well-known history professor at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). He was surrounded by a gang of young people. He told me those young people were working for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and then asked me: would you enjoy watching what we do? I said yes and found myself in the Pentagon, in the highly classified part. A military was discussing in detail project Clementine. I asked him: wouldn’t it increase your mission’s value if you had an image compressor? He answered me: why do you think you’re here for? I was impressed. And naturally, I helped them. Working for CNES, this cooperation project was done quite secretly. It worked very well, it was an absolute success: we received two million excellent numerical images. I then convinced CNES to use image compressors in as much missions as possible. It worked very well too on SPOT or Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre, a commercial high-resolution optical imaging Earth observation satellite system operating from outer space.

Jacques Blamont, what is outer space’s future?

Space is going through a period of revolution, with a lot of new actors like China, who wants to become the first space power, and also what is called the “New Space”. This concerns American billionaires who have been immersed in the Star Trek culture and who are now investing heavily in space technologies. These people arrive with colossal capital. They have a huge impact on the evolution of space, especially SpaceX, which has become the world’s number one with the Falcon 9 launcher. We are in a transition period, and I think we are still in the fog. Space is becoming more democratic, that’s what I called “The crowd seized space”. The future cannot do without space.

Thank you very much Jacques Blamont.

Planetary defense

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What is planetary defense? A collision sixty-six million years ago between the Earth and an object approximately ten kilometres wide is thought to have produced the Mexican Chicxulub crater and the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, widely held responsible for the extinction of most dinosaurs. Asteroid impacts are a continuously occurring natural process. Could this happen again? How are we protecting ourselves?

What is planetary defense?

According to NASA, “Planetary defense is the term used to encompass all the capabilities needed to detect the possibility and warn of potential asteroid or comet impacts with Earth, and then either prevent them or mitigate their possible effects”. It involves “finding and tracking near-Earth objects that pose of hazard of impacting Earth”, “characterizing those objects to determine their orbit trajectory, size, shape, mass, composition, rotational dynamics and other parameters, so that experts can determine the severity of the potential impact event, warn of its timing and potential effects, and determine the means to mitigate the impact”, and “planning and implementation of measures to deflect or disrupt an object on an impact course with Earth, or to mitigate the effects of an impact that cannot be prevented. Mitigation measures that can be taken on Earth to protect lives and property include evacuation of the impact area and movement of critical infrastructure”.

Asteroids and comets

Asteroids (the term asteroid, from Latin aster star and -oid like “star-like”, was coined by William Herschel, November 15, 1738 – August 25, 1822, a German-born British astronomer and brother of fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel, with whom he worked, for objects which looked like stars in a telescope but moved like planets) are minor planets (a minor planet an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun, or more broadly, any star with a planetary system, that is neither a planet nor exclusively classified as a comet), especially of the inner Solar System. Larger asteroids have also been called planetoids. These terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not resemble a planet-like disc and was not observed to have characteristics of an active comet such as a tail. Asteroids are typically composed of rock-forming minerals, most commonly olivine and pyroxene. However, they often contain metal (iron and nickel), sulphides (chemical mixtures of metals and sulphur), clays, and organic compounds. The structure and composition of asteroids vary from object to object.

Most asteroids in our Solar System reside in the region between Mars and Jupiter, approximately three hundred million kilometres from Earth, known as the asteroid belt (also termed the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and Trojan asteroids, the asteroid belt is the circumstellar disc in the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter, occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets). Most asteroids are fragments of larger bodies that broke up due to collisions in the early part of Solar System history. Only a few of the very largest asteroids have remained intact. Based on studies of meteorites that have fallen to Earth and telescopic studies of asteroids, scientists have learned that most meteorites are fragments of asteroids that were broken off during collisions. Chemical and age-dating studies of meteorites have shown that asteroids formed about four and a half billion years ago. Studying asteroids provides a way of looking back into processes and conditions that existed during the formation of the Solar System.

A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process called outgassing (the release of a gas that was dissolved, trapped, frozen or absorbed in some material). This produces a visible atmosphere or coma (the nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet, formed when the comet passes close to the Sun on its highly elliptical orbit; as the comet warms, parts of it sublime – the transition of a substance directly from the solid to the gas phase, without passing through the intermediate liquid phase), and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind acting upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei range from a few hundred metres to tens of kilometres across and are composed of loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles.

Near-Earth objects

A near-Earth object (NEO) is an asteroid or comet whose orbit periodically brings it within approximately two hundred million kilometres of the Sun – that’s within about fifty million kilometres of Earth’s orbit. Like the planets, all asteroids and comets orbit the Sun. Some of the smaller moons of other planets may be captured asteroids. The vast majority of near-Earth asteroids have come from inner part of the asteroid belt, where their orbits were altered by mutual collisions and by the gravitational influence of Jupiter and Mars. The resulting fragments, mostly the size of grains of sand, bombard the Earth at the rate of more than one hundred tons a day. Although the vast majority of NEOs that enter Earth’s atmosphere disintegrate before reaching the surface, those that are larger than around thirty to fifty meters in size may survive the descent and cause widespread damage in and around their impact sites. Of the more than six hundred thousand known asteroids in our Solar System, more than sixteen thousand are NEOs. Since 1998, the United States of America, the European Union, and other States are scanning for NEOs in an effort called Spaceguard.

Observers find and track NEOs using ground-based telescopes around the world, and, currently, NASA’s space-based NEOWISE infrared telescope. The basic method of finding NEOs is to look for small objects moving across the background of relatively fixed stars. Observers track NEOs by using their predicted orbits, based on initial observations, to look for the objects at the time and in the place where they have been predicted to be visible to telescopes again. It takes a week to a month of observations for scientists to establish a good orbit determination. Observers provide their data to a global database maintained by the Minor Planet Center, which is sanctioned by the International Astronomical Union and funded by NASA’s NEO Observations Program. NEOs are characterized by using optical and radio telescopes to determine their size, shape, rotation, and physical composition. Some of the most detailed characterization data is obtained by planetary radar, performed by radio telescopes at NASA’s Deep Space Network and the National Science Foundation’s Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Other methods employed to characterize NEOs are ground-based and space-based spectroscopic and infrared measurements, light-curve measurements, and long-arc high-precision astrometry.

Small asteroids are detected passing between Earth and the Moon’s orbit several times a month. Meteoroids – very small fragments of asteroids and comets – hit Earth’s atmosphere and explode virtually every day, causing the bright meteor events that people see at night and sometimes leaving remnant, meteorites, on the ground. Asteroids are international common resources belonging to humanity. Article II of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (General Assembly resolution 2222 XXI, opened for signature on January 27, 1967, and entered into force on October 10, 1967), states that “Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means”.

Past impact events

An impact event is a collision between astronomical objects causing measurable effects. Impact events have physical consequences and have been found to regularly occur in planetary systems, though the most frequent involve asteroids, comets or meteoroids and have minimal effect. When large objects impact terrestrial planets such as the Earth, there can be significant physical and biospheric consequences, though atmospheres mitigate many surface impacts through atmospheric entry. Impact craters and structures are dominant landforms on many of the Solar System’s solid objects and present the strongest empirical evidence for their frequency and scale.

Major impact events have significantly shaped Earth’s history, having been implicated in the formation of the Earth-Moon system, the evolutionary history of life, the origin of water on Earth, and several mass extinctions. Impact structures are the result of impact events on solid objects and, as the dominant landforms on many of the System’s solid objects, present the most solid evidence of prehistoric events. Notable impact events include the Late Heavy Bombardment, which occurred early in history of the Earth-Moon system, and the Chicxulub impact, sixty-six million years ago, believed to be the cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.

Meteorite accidents have occurred in the past years. The Tunguska event was a large explosion that occurred near the Stony Tunguska River in Russia, on the morning of June 30, 1908. The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened two thousand square kilometres of forest, yet caused no known human casualties. The explosion is generally attributed to the air burst of a meteor. It is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found; the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of five to ten kilometres rather than to have hit the surface of the Earth. The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history. On November 30, 1954, the Sylacauga meteorite fell in Oak Grove, Alabama, near Sylacauga. It is commonly called the Hodges meteorite because a fragment of it struck Ann Elizabeth Fowler Hodges. The Sylacauga meteorite is the first documented extraterrestrial object to have injured a human being. The grapefruit-sized fragment crashed through the roof of a farm house, bounced off a large wooden console radio, and hit Hodges while she napped on a couch.

The Chelyabinsk meteor was a superbolide, an extremely bright meteor, especially one that explodes in the atmosphere, caused by an approximately twenty meter near-Earth asteroid that entered Earth’s atmosphere over Russia on February 15, 2013 with a speed of approximatively eighteen kilometres per second. It quickly became a brilliant superbolide meteor over the southern Ural region. The light from the meteor was brighter than the Sun, visible up to one hundred kilometres away. It was observed over a wide area of the region and in neighbouring republics. Some eyewitnesses also felt intense heat from the fireball. Due to its high velocity and shallow angle of atmospheric entry, the object exploded in an air burst over Chelyabinsk Oblast, at a height of around thirty kilometres. The explosion generated a bright flash, producing a hot cloud of dust and gas and many surviving small fragmentary meteorites, as well as a large shock wave. The bulk of the object’s energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, with a total kinetic energy before atmospheric impact estimated from infrasound and seismic measurements to be equivalent to the blast yield of four to five hundred kilotons of TNT – thirty times as much energy as that released from the atomic bomb detonated at Hiroshima.

The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN)

The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) was established in 2014 to address the recommendations for an international response to the near-Earth Object impact threat, and endorsed by the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the General Assembly resolution 68/75. It forms an international association of institutions involved in detecting, tracking, and characterizing NEOs (Near Earth Objects) to provide the best information available on the NEO hazard and any impact threat. The IAWN is also tasked to use well-defined communication plans and protocols to assist Governments in the analysis of asteroid impact consequences and to support the planning of mitigation responses.

The Resolution 68/75 adopted by the General Assembly on December 11, 2013 on International cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space enounces that “1. Seriously concerned about the devastating impact of disasters (the term disasters refers to natural or technological disasters), 2. Desirous of enhancing international coordination and cooperation at the global level in disaster management and emergency response through greater access to and use of space-based services for all countries and facilitating capacity-building and institutional strengthening for disaster management, in particular in developing countries, 3. Welcomes with satisfaction the recommendations for an international response to the near-Earth object impact threat, endorsed by the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee at its fiftieth session and by the Committee at its fifty-sixth session, and 4. Notes with satisfaction the progress made within the framework of the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER), and encourages Member States, on a voluntary basis, to provide the programme with the additional resources necessary to ensure that greater support may be provided to Member States by UN-SPIDER and its regional support offices”.

IAWN’s functions are: “To discover, monitor, and physically characterize the potentially hazardous NEO population using optical and radar facilities and other assets based in both the northern and southern hemispheres and in space; To provide and maintain an internationally recognized clearing house function for the receipt, acknowledgement and processing of all NEO observations; To act as a global portal, serving as the international focal point for accurate and validated information on the NEO population; To coordinate campaigns for the observation of potentially hazardous objects; To recommend policies regarding criteria and thresholds for notification of an emerging impact threat; To develop a database of potential impact consequences, depending on geography, geology, population distribution and other related factors; To assess hazard analysis results and communicate them to entities that should be identified by Member States as being responsible for the receipt of notification of an impact threat in accordance with established policies; To assist Governments in the analysis of impact consequences and in the planning of mitigation responses”.

Likewise, the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG) was established in response to the recommendations for an international response to a NEO impact threat, as endorsed by the UN General Assembly resolution 68/75. SMPAG responsibilities include laying out the framework, timeline and options for initiating and executing space mission response activities as well as promoting opportunities for international collaboration on research and techniques for NEO deflection.

The Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO)

Asteroid impact avoidance comprises a number of methods by which near-Earth objects (NEO) could be diverted, preventing destructive impact events. A sufficiently large impact by an asteroid or other NEOs would cause, depending on its impact location, massive tsunamis, multiple firestorms and an impact winter caused by the sunlight-blocking effect of placing large quantities of pulverized rock dust, and other debris, into the stratosphere. Among organisations such as the Spaceguard Foundation, the Meteoritical Society or the Japan Spaceguard Association, the United States of America have established in 2016 the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), a planetary defense organization within NASA’s Planetary Science Division. Its mission is to lead the coordination of interagency and intergovernmental efforts to plan responses to potential impact threats. Planetary Defense Coordination Office is given the job of cataloguing and tracking potentially hazardous near-Earth objects such as asteroids and comets, which are larger than thirty to fifty meters in diameter and coordinating an effective threat response and mitigation effort.

NASA has been studying NEOs since the 1970s. The Agency initiated a survey, commonly called Spaceguard, in the 1990s to begin to search for them. NASA participated in the International Spaceguard Survey, initiated in 1996 and sponsored by the multinational Spaceguard Foundation. NASA now participates as a key member in the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), recommended by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space as the unified response for all space-capable nations to address the NEO impact hazard. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) is managed in the Planetary Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The PDCO is responsible for “Ensuring the early detection of potentially hazardous objects (PHOs) – asteroids and comets whose orbits are predicted to bring them within 0.05 Astronomical Units of Earth; and of a size large enough to reach Earth’s surface – that is, greater than approximately 30 to 50 meters; Tracking and characterizing PHOs and issuing warnings about potential impacts; Providing timely and accurate communications about PHOs; and Leading the coordination of U.S. Government planning for response to an actual impact threat”.

“The formal establishment of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office makes it evident that the agency is committed to perform a leadership role in national and international efforts for the detection of these natural impact hazards, and to be engaged in planning if there is a need for planetary defense”. The PDCO relies on data from projects supported by NASA’s Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program. The PDCO also coordinates NEO observation efforts conducted at ground-based observatories sponsored by the National Science Foundation and space situational awareness facilities of the United States Air Force. In addition to finding, tracking, and characterizing PHOs, NASA’s planetary defense goals include developing techniques for deflecting or redirecting PHOs, if possible, that are determined to be on an impact course with Earth. In the event that deflection or redirection is not possible, the PDCO is responsible for providing expert input to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for emergency response operations should a PHO be on an impact course or actually impact the Earth.

Impacts can potentially lead to significant damage to life and property on our planet. We have to reinforce international cooperation to ensure that all countries, in particular developing nations with limited capacity for predicting and mitigating a NEO impact, are aware of potential risks as well as to ensure effective emergency response and disaster management in the event of a NEO impact. That is what we can say about planetary defense.

The birth of the French space program

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The French space program started with the creation of CNES. The National Center for Space Studies or Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES), the most important national space agency in the European Union, is a public institution of an industrial and commercial nature responsible for developing, proposing and implementing the French space program. CNES has a budget of approximatively two and a half billion euros per year, which remains the largest in Europe. It includes the share donated to the European Space Agency (ESA), of which CNES is the largest contributor. CNES is under the joint supervision of the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. CNES was created at the initiative of President Charles De Gaulle on December 19, 1961 to provide a structure to coordinate and animate French’s space activities.

Space travel has long been a significant ambition in French culture. From the Gobelins’ 1664 tapestry representing a space rocket, to Jules Verne’s 1865 novel De la Terre à la Lune and George Méliès’ 1902 movie Le Voyage dans la Lune, space and rocketry were present in French society long before the technological means appeared to allow the development of a space exploration program. During the late eighteenth century, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier (March 30, 1754 – June 15, 1785), Jacques Charles (November 12, 1746 – April 7, 1823) and the Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (August 26, 1740 – June 26, 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (January 6, 1745 – August 2, 1799) – are seen as worldwide precursors and explorers of aeronautics, with the world record altitude then reached by a human at seven thousand meters performed by Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac (December 6, 1778 – May 9, 1850) in 1804. Those names, their numerous students and their works will mark the early expertise of France’s space program in all types of air balloons since.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the origins of the French space program are tied to French technological developments in aerospace and astronautics, notably the nascent airplane and rocket industries. Robert Esnault-Pelterie (November 8, 1881 – December 6, 1957) appears as one of the early pioneers in space exploration design and rocket science. From 1908, he studied propulsion and space flight; without knowing the work of Russian mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (September 17, 1857 – September 19, 1935) at that time, he derived the mathematical equations for interplanetary flight, flight durations, and engine propulsion, and was later nominated President of the Trade association of Aircraft industries (Chambre Syndicale des Industries Aéronautiques) in 1912. From 1935 to 1939 he designed a high-altitude sounding rocket, but World War II interrupted his plans.

At the end of the Second World War, the Allies were interested in the work done by the Germans on rockets. President Charles De Gaulle did not wish to leave to the USSR and the United States of America the monopoly of the techniques allowing to reach satellisation (placing satellites on orbit). Until then, French researches in the field of rocket engines had been conducted in a military framework from technologies more or less derived from the German experiences of V2 missiles. Each country had endeavoured to collect as much technical information as possible on V2 ballistic missiles. To lead a serious French space program, a coordination and animation body was missing. It was created on December 19, 1961 in the form of a public institution called the National Center for Space Studies or Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES). Two years later, the decision was taken to build a space centre in Toulouse, and on April 14, 1964, the construction of a space centre in Kourou (French Guiana) began.

The Law No. 61-1382 of December 19, 1961 establishing a National Center for Space Studies, states in its Article 1 that “Under the name National Center for Space Studies is established a public scientific and technical institution, of an industrial and commercial character, endowed with financial autonomy and placed under the authority of the Prime Minister”. Article 2 enounces that “The mission of the National Center for Space Studies is to develop and guide the scientific and technical research pursued in the field of space research. It has to: 1. Collect all information on national and international activities concerning the problems of outer space, its exploration and use; 2. Prepare and propose for the approval of the interministerial committee for scientific and technical research, research programs of national interest in this field; 3. Ensure the execution of such programs, either in the laboratories and technical establishments created by it, or by means of research agreements concluded with other public or private bodies, or by financial participations; 4. Follow, in liaison with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the problems of international co-operation in the field of outer space and to ensure the execution of the international programs entrusted to France; 5. Provide, either directly or through subscriptions or grants, the publication of scientific works concerning the problems of outer space”. Article 6 affirms that “The National Center for Space Studies will submit to the Parliament each year, before the vote of the budget, a report on its activity and the results obtained during the past year”.

CNES’s first mission was to place France in the club of space superpowers alongside USSR and the United States of America. CNES started its activity and focused its efforts in three ways: the preparation of the Diamant launcher from ballistic equipment experienced in recent years, the manufacture (with the French industry) of small scientific satellites of the D-1 family (Diadème and Diapason), and the acquisition of more sophisticated skills through cooperation with NASA to train engineers and build a scientific satellite (FR-1, second French artificial satellite launched on December 6, 1965 by an American rocket Scout from the Vandenberg spaceport). From 1961 to 1981, CNES is going to be the driving force of European space activities. During these years, the necessary structures for a space program (centres of operations, laboratories…) are going to be put in place. As part of the French national research and technology effort, a competent and dynamic space industry is going to emerge in Paris, Toulouse and Kourou (French Guiana). Other European States are going to have strong reluctance to engage. In the 1980s, the European Space Agency (ESA) which CNES helped to create and which it equipped with the Ariane rocket, is going to become a large agency and many international programs are going to be entrusted to it. CNES today represents France at ESA and is successfully reframing its activities on an ambitious national application-oriented program.

The Laboratoire de recherches balistiques et aérodynamiques (LRBA)

The Ballistic and Aerodynamic Research Laboratory or Laboratoire de recherches balistiques et aérodynamiques (LRBA) was created soon after the end of the Second World War, on May 17, 1946 in Vernon, a commune in the department of Eure in the Normandy region in northern France. Commissioned to develop what later became the Véronique rocket probe, LRBA brought together one hundred and fifty German V2 ballistic missile specialists that had been hired by the French army. The objective was double: on the one hand, allowing French researchers and French industries to acquire knowledge in the fields of rocket propulsion and guidance, and on the other hand, to develop new gear extrapolated from the German achievements. In the city of Madeleine or Buschdorf, built on a military field far from any city (in order to avoid contact with the population), more than a hundred German specialists from Peenemünde settled and began working on rockets and missiles designed to counter the threat of long-range Soviet bombers. Among these specialists were Karl-Heinz Bringer, inventor of Ariane’s Viking rocket engines, Helmut Habermann, who has worked with Wernher von Braun, Wolfgang Pilz, a propulsion specialist, and Otto Müller, a guidance specialist.

In the early 1950s, fuel improvement tests for the future Véronique rocket were carried out, sometimes leading to incidents. In the late 1950s, the LRBA will lost the majority of its German specialists. On March 9, 1963, new facilities were inaugurated. On November 26, 1965, the first French satellite, Astérix, was launched by the Diamant-A rocket from the Hammaguir base, Bechar Province, French Algeria. France became the third world space power.

The Société d’étude et de réalisation d’engins balistiques (Sereb)

The Society of study and realization of ballistic missiles or Société d’étude et de réalisation d’engins balistiques (Sereb) was created in 1959. This entity is closely related to the history of France’s military nuclear program. At its beginning, it aimed at developing missiles capable of carrying the French atomic weapon. President Charles De Gaulle wanted a completely independent nuclear strike force, using vectors placed on submarines. As a result, Sereb established the programs of Basic Ballistic Studies known as Precious Stones and developed many vectors (any aeronautical or astronautical vehicle capable of carrying a weapon for launching on a target). Between 1961 and 1965, all the necessary knowledge for the realization of long-range missiles as well as satellite launchers were methodically acquired. Several rockets were designed: Aigle and Agate, Topaze, Émeraude, Saphir and Rubis.

The Véronique rocket

Véronique is a French liquid-fuelled sounding rocket (sometimes called a research rocket, a sounding rocket is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight) that was partly developed by German scientists who had worked in Peenemünde. Forty-eight Véronique rockets will be launched between 1959 and 1969 with a success rate of eighty percent. In addition to experiments on the upper atmosphere, the Véronique rockets are going to be used several times to study the effects of acceleration and vibrations on living beings (rats, cats and monkeys). On March 24, 1967, a Véronique rocket reached the altitude of three hundred and sixty-five kilometres, which might be the highest altitude to be ever reached by those types of rockets. Based on the German V-2 rocket, Véronique was the first West European liquid-fuel research rocket. Built (in Vernon, Eure) between 1950 and 1969 in several versions, the Véronique rocket is going to be the first rocket to be launched from the Guiana space centre in Kourou, French Guiana, on April 9, 1968, following the closure of Hammaguir (Bechar Province, French Algeria) in July 1967. The name Véronique is an abbreviation of Vernon-électronique.

The Diamant rocket

During the late 1940s and 1950s, substantial interest arose amongst the international powers in the development of rocketry and missile technology, in particular the prospects for ballistic missiles capable of travelling great distances. Both of the emergent superpowers of the time, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics chose to invest heavily within this new field, observing its political and military importance; it was not long before a highly competitive atmosphere emerged where neither entity wished to fall behind the other in missile technology, which directly led to the so-called “Space Race”. As a result, in 1959, the French government established the Space Research Committee or Comité de Recherches Spatiales (CRS), which would later be replaced by the CNES. From an early stage, the organisation’s primary goal was to pursue the development of an indigenous expendable launch system with which payloads, such as satellites, could be launched into orbit. On November 26, 1965, the first Diamant rocket was fired from its launch site, the Interarmy Special Vehicles Test Centre or Centre d’essais d’engins spéciaux (CEES), at Hammaguir, Bechar Province, French Algeria.

The Diamant rocket was the first exclusively French expendable launch system and at the same time the first satellite launcher not built by either the United States of America or USSR. As such, it has been referred to as being a key predecessor for all subsequent European launcher projects. The French-built satellite launcher’s first shot happened in 1965 and sent the French Astérix satellite (thirty-nine kilograms) into a Low Earth Orbit.

The Astérix satellite and the French space program

Astérix, the first French satellite, was launched on November 26, 1965 by a Diamant rocket from the CIEES launch site at Hammaguir, French Algeria. With Astérix, France became the sixth country to have an artificial satellite in orbit after the USSR (Sputnik 1, 1957), the United States of America (Explorer 1, 1958), the United Kingdom (Ariel 1, 1962), Canada (Alouette 1, 1962), and Italy (San Marco 1, 1964), and the third to launch a satellite on its own (Ariel 1, Alouette 1 and San Marco 1 were launched on American rockets). The satellite, launched in order to test the Diamant launching vehicle, was originally designated A-1, as the French Army’s first satellite, but later renamed after the popular French comics character Astérix. Due to the relatively high altitude of its orbit, it is not expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere for several centuries.

Concluding remarks on the French space program

Today, the French space program brings together all French civil and military space activities. Most of these have been carried out since the 1970s in a multinational framework, particularly within the European Space Agency (ESA), which coordinates the European space program.

The origins of the Apollo program

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Let’s study for this article on Space Legal Issues the origins of the Apollo program. Against the backdrop of the Cold War conflict, a new kind of rivalry took shape in the early 1960s between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Russians appeared to be ahead in the so-called “race for space” as they followed their launching of the first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957 with the history-making flight of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in April 1961. The following month, Alan Shepard became the first US astronaut in space in a fifteen-minute sub-orbital flight. Three weeks later, President Kennedy called for the landing of an American on the Moon by the end of the decade as he sought a major mobilization of the nation’s resources to catch up with and surpass the USSR in the space race. By February 20, 1962, when John Glenn returned safely after orbiting the earth three times aboard Friendship 7, the US space program clearly had moved into high gear.

When talking about the origins of the Apollo program, let’s note that the Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth. Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) achieved this goal. Apollos 7 and 9 were Earth orbiting missions to test the Command and Lunar Modules, and did not return lunar data. Apollos 8 and 10 tested various components while orbiting the Moon, and returned photography of the lunar surface. Apollo 13 did not land on the Moon due to a malfunction, but also returned photographs. The six missions that landed on the Moon returned a wealth of scientific data and almost four hundred kilograms of lunar samples. Experiments included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind experiments.

President Kennedy’s Challenge

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy began a dramatic expansion of the U.S. space program and committed the nation to the ambitious goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. President Kennedy understood the need to restore America’s confidence and intended not merely to match the Soviets, but surpass them. On May 25, 1961, he stood before Congress to deliver a special message on “urgent national needs”. He asked for an additional seven to nine billion dollars over the next five years for the space program, proclaiming that “this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth”. President Kennedy settled upon this dramatic goal as a means of focusing and mobilizing the nation’s lagging space efforts. Sceptics questioned the ability of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to meet the president’s timetable. Within a year, however, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom became the first two Americans to travel into space.

Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs – President John F. Kennedy – Delivered in person before a joint session of Congress – May 25, 1961 – Excerpt of Section IX: Space:

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations – explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moon – if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there”.

“Secondly, an additional 23 million dollars, together with 7 million dollars already available, will accelerate development of the Rover nuclear rocket. This gives promise of someday providing a means for even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the Moon, perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself”.

“I believe we should go to the Moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of the Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year”.

Project Mercury and the origins of the Apollo program

Project Mercury was the NASA program that put the first American astronauts in space. Astronauts made a total of six spaceflights during Project Mercury. Two of those flights reached space and came right back down. These are called suborbital flights. The other four went into orbit and circled Earth. The first of those six flights was made in 1961. The last flight was made in 1963. The Mercury spacecraft was designed for this project. It was a small capsule with room for one astronaut. The astronaut stayed in his seat during the flight. Two types of rockets were used for Project Mercury. The first two of the six flights with an astronaut on board used a Redstone rocket. The four manned flights that orbited Earth used an Atlas rocket. Both of these rockets were originally designed as missiles for the United States military. The project was named Mercury after a Roman god who was very fast. Each astronaut named his spacecraft. Alan Shepard included a 7 in the name of his Mercury capsule. This was because it was the seventh one made. The other astronauts included a 7 also. This was in honour of the seven astronauts chosen for the project. NASA selected seven astronauts for Project Mercury in 1959. Choosing the astronauts was one of the first things NASA did. The agency was only six months old when it chose them. Alan Shepard made the first Mercury flight. That flight made him the first American in space. The 15-minute flight went into space and came back down. His Mercury capsule was named Freedom 7. Years later, Shepard walked on the Moon as commander of the Apollo 14 mission.

Before astronauts flew in Project Mercury, NASA conducted several test flights. These launches did not have people aboard. The test flights helped NASA find and fix problems. The first Atlas rocket launched with a Mercury capsule exploded. The first Mercury-Redstone launch only went about four inches off the ground. From these flights, NASA learned how to fix the rockets and make them safer. NASA learned a lot from Project Mercury. The agency learned how to put astronauts in orbit around Earth. It learned how people could live and work in space. It learned how to operate a spacecraft in orbit. These lessons were very important. NASA used them in later space programs. After Mercury, came the Gemini program. The Gemini spacecraft had room for two astronauts. NASA learned even more with Gemini. Together, Mercury and Gemini prepared NASA for the Apollo program. During Apollo, NASA landed human beings on the Moon for the first time.

The Gemini Program

Gemini was an early NASA human spaceflight program. Gemini helped NASA get ready for the Apollo Moon landings. Ten crews flew missions on the two-man Gemini spacecraft. The Gemini missions were flown in 1965 and 1966. They flew between the Mercury and Apollo programs. NASA designed the Gemini capsule for this program. On the outside, it looked much like the capsule used for the Mercury missions. It was bigger than the Mercury capsule. It could hold two people instead of one. But each astronaut did not have much room. The Gemini capsule improved on the Mercury spacecraft. Basically, the Mercury spacecraft could change only the way it was facing in its orbit. The Gemini could change what orbit it was in. NASA named the Gemini spacecraft and program after the constellation Gemini. The name is Latin for “twins”. NASA used this name because the Gemini capsule would carry two people. The Gemini capsule flew on a Titan II rocket. The two-stage Titan II was originally a missile. NASA made changes to the missile so it could carry people. Before the first astronauts flew on it, it launched without a crew so that NASA could test its safety.

Astronauts accomplished many things on the Gemini missions. The first flight to carry astronauts was Gemini 3 (also known as Gemini-Titan 3 or GT-3). That flight tested the new vehicle. The Gemini 4 mission included the first U.S. spacewalk. Gemini 5 stayed in orbit for more than a week. The Gemini 6A and 7 missions were in space at the same time and met each other in orbit. Gemini 7 stayed in space for two weeks. Gemini 8 connected with another unmanned spacecraft in orbit. The Gemini 9 mission tested different ways of flying near another spacecraft. It also included a spacewalk. Gemini 10 connected with another spacecraft and used its engines to move both vehicles. The Gemini 11 mission flew higher than any NASA mission before. The last mission, Gemini 12, solved problems from earlier spacewalks.

Before Gemini, NASA had limited experience in space. The Mercury missions had proved astronauts could fly in space. But before people could land on the Moon, NASA had to learn many things. It had to learn what happened when astronauts spent many days in space. It had to learn how astronauts could go outside a spacecraft in a spacesuit. It had to learn how to connect two spacecraft together in space. Going to the Moon would require doing all of these things. Before Gemini, NASA had not done any of them. Gemini proved NASA could do them all.

The Apollo Program

Apollo was the NASA program that resulted in American astronauts’ making a total of eleven spaceflights and walking on the Moon. In the origins of the Apollo program, the first four flights tested the equipment used in the Apollo Program. Six of the other seven flights landed on the Moon. The first Apollo flight happened in 1968. The first Moon landing took place in 1969. The last Moon landing was in 1972. A total of twelve astronauts walked on the Moon. The astronauts conducted scientific research there. They studied the lunar surface. They collected Moon rocks to bring back to Earth. NASA designed the Apollo Command Module for this program. It was a capsule with room for three astronauts. The astronauts rode in the Command Module on the way to the Moon and back. It was larger than the spacecraft used in the Mercury and Gemini programs. The astronauts had room to move around inside the spacecraft. The crew area had about as much room as a car. Another spacecraft, the Lunar Module, was used for landing on the Moon. This spacecraft carried astronauts from orbit around the Moon to the Moon’s surface, then back into orbit. It could carry two astronauts.

Two types of rockets were used for the Apollo program. The first flights used the smaller Saturn I (1) B rocket. It was about as tall as a 22-story building. This rocket had two stages. That means it was made of two parts. When the first part ran out of fuel, it dropped away from the other and burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. The second part continued flying. The Saturn IB rocket was used to test the new Apollo capsule in Earth orbit. The other flights used the more powerful Saturn V (5) rocket. This three-stage rocket sent the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. It was about as tall as a 36-story building.

When analysing the origins of the Apollo program, the first manned mission to the Moon was Apollo 8. It circled around the Moon on Christmas Eve in 1968. However, Apollo 8 did not land on the Moon. It orbited the Moon, then came back to Earth. The crew was Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell. The first Moon landing occurred on July 20, 1969, on the Apollo 11 mission. The crew of Apollo 11 was Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the lunar surface while Collins remained in orbit around the Moon. When Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon, he said “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind”.

Concluding remarks on the origins of the Apollo program

As space exploration continued through the 1960s, the United States of America was on its way to the Moon. Project Gemini was the second NASA spaceflight program. Its goals were to perfect the entry and re-entry manoeuvres of a spacecraft and conduct further tests on how individuals are affected by long periods of space travel. The Apollo Program followed Project Gemini. Its goal was to land humans on the Moon and assure their safe return to Earth. On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts – Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. – realised President Kennedy’s dream. That is what we can say about the origins of the Apollo program.

The International Civil Aviation Organization

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In order to understand better what Space Law is (and, more generally, Public International Law) and how it works, let’s keep studying Air Law and discuss throughout this article the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)’ legal status, its structure and missions. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is a UN specialized agency based in Montreal (Canada), established by States in 1944 to manage the administration and governance of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention). Its role is to participate in the development of standards that allow the standardization of international aviation transport (flights within the same country are not concerned by ICAO).

ICAO works with the Convention’s Member States and industry groups to reach consensus on international civil aviation Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) and policies in support of a safe, efficient, secure, economically sustainable and environmentally responsible civil aviation sector. These SARPs and policies are used by ICAO Member States to ensure that their local civil aviation operations and regulations conform to global norms, which in turn permits more than one hundred thousand daily flights in aviation’s global network to operate safely and reliably in every region of the world. Since the end of the Second World War, regulations produced by ICAO have enabled the implementation of air transport, both for persons and goods, at the global level, thanks to recommendations followed by all Member States, aeronautical equipment manufacturers and aircraft manufacturers, institutions responsible for airports…

ICAO’s history

The forerunner to ICAO was the International Commission for Air Navigation (ICAN). It held its first convention in 1903 in Berlin, Germany, but no agreements were reached among the eight countries that attended. At the second convention in 1906, also held in Berlin, twenty-seven countries attended. The third convention, held in London in 1912, allocated the first radio call signs (in broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitter station; aviation call signs are communication call signs assigned as unique identifiers to aircraft) for use by aircraft. ICAN continued to operate until 1945. ICAO was formally established in November 1944 by fifty-two countries as the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO). Indeed, for the Chicago Convention to enter into force, it required the ratification of twenty-six States. In the meantime, it has constituted itself as a provisional organization. Accordingly, PICAO began operating on June 6, 1945, replacing ICAN. It became ICAO on April 4, 1947 when the twenty-six ratifications were obtained. PICAO replaced the International Commission for Air Navigation (ICAN), which was founded at the time of the 1919′ Paris Convention. In October 1947, ICAO became an agency of the United Nations linked to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

In April 2013, Qatar offered to serve as the new permanent seat of the Organization. Qatar promised to construct a massive new headquarters for ICAO and cover all moving expenses, stating that Montreal “was too far from Europe and Asia”, “had cold winters”, “was hard to attend due to the refusal of the Canadian government to provide visas in a timely manner”, and that “the taxes imposed on ICAO by Canada were too high”.

The Chicago Convention of 1944

As part of our research on Space Law, it is interesting to focus on civil and military aviation and the various international laws that came to frame these activities. Air and outer space have only been relevant to international law since the beginning of the 20th century. After developing their gliders in flight between 1900 and 1903, with more than seven hundred flights in 1902, the Wright brothers, two American aviators, engineers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who are generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world’s first successful airplane, experimented their first aircraft, the Flyer, in the Kitty Hawk dunes on December 17, 1903. The rise of air navigation in the aftermath of the Second World War has given rise to many disputes in many countries. Hence the origin of conflicts of jurisdiction and different solutions to an identical problem; this situation made it necessary for States to unify texts at an international level. In 1919, the Paris Convention brought together the victors of the First World War with the aim of establishing an international charter for the control and development of air transport on a worldwide scale.

The Convention on International Civil Aviation, drafted in 1944 by fifty-four nations, was established to promote cooperation and “create and preserve friendship and understanding among the nations and peoples of the world”. Known more commonly today as the Chicago Convention, this landmark agreement established the core principles permitting international transport by air, and led to the creation of the specialized agency which has overseen it ever since, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The Second World War was a powerful catalyst for the technical development of the aeroplane. A vast network of passenger and freight carriage was set up during this period, but there were many obstacles, both political and technical, to evolving these facilities and routes to their new civilian purposes. Subsequent to several studies initiated by the United States, as well as various consultations it undertook with its Major Allies, the U.S. government sent an invitation to fifty-five States to attend an International Civil Aviation Conference in Chicago in 1944. Those States were the following: Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, the French Delegation, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, the Union of South Africa, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, the Danish Minister in Washington and the Thai Minister in Washington.

The Chicago Convention of 1944 or Magna Carta of Air Law confirmed the total primacy of states in the regulation of air transport (a country can thus prohibit overflight of nuclear power plants and Canada has been able to create exclusion zones above prisons, to limit risk of escape by helicopter), established rules of the air and rules for the registration of aircraft, and specifies the rights and duties of signatory countries in the field of Air Law relating to international air transport (with the more complex case of military aircrafts and more recently, military or civilian drones).

ICAO’s legal status

1944′ Chicago Convention, in its CHAPTER VI on INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND RECOMMENDED PRACTICES, Article 37 on “Adoption of international standards and procedures” affirms that “Each contracting State undertakes to collaborate in securing the highest practicable degree of uniformity in regulations, standards, procedures, and organization in relation to aircraft, personnel, airways and auxiliary services in all matters in which such uniformity will facilitate and improve air navigation. To this end the International Civil Aviation Organization shall adopt and amend from time to time, as may be necessary, international standards and recommended practices and procedures dealing with: (a) Communications systems and air navigation aids, including ground marking; (b) Characteristics of airports and landing areas; (c) Rules of the air and air traffic control practices; (d) Licensing of operating and mechanical personnel; (e) Airworthiness of aircraft; (f) Registration and identification of aircraft; (g) Collection and exchange of meteorological information; (h) Log books; (i) Aeronautical maps and charts; (j) Customs and immigration procedures; (k) Aircraft in distress and investigation of accidents; and such other matters concerned with the safety, regularity, and efficiency of air navigation as may from time to time appear appropriate”.

1944′ Chicago Convention PART II on THE INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION ORGANIZATION, CHAPTER VII on THE ORGANIZATION, Article 43 on “Name and composition” states that “An organization to be named the International Civil Aviation Organization is formed by the Convention. It is made up of an Assembly, a Council, and such other bodies as may be necessary”. Article 44 on “Objectives” enounces that “The aims and objectives of the Organization are to develop the principles and techniques of international air navigation and to foster the planning and development of international air transport so as to: (a) Insure the safe and orderly growth of international civil aviation throughout the world; (b) Encourage the arts of aircraft design and operation for peaceful purposes; (c) Encourage the development of airways, airports, and air navigation facilities for international civil aviation; (d) Meet the needs of the peoples of the world for safe, regular, efficient and economical air transport; (e) Prevent economic waste caused by unreasonable competition; (f) Insure that the rights of contracting States are fully respected and that every contracting State has a fair opportunity to operate international airlines; (g) Avoid discrimination between contracting States; (h) Promote safety of flight in international air navigation; (i) Promote generally the development of all aspects of international civil aeronautics”.

1944′ Chicago Convention’s Article 47 on “Legal capacity” express that “The Organization shall enjoy in the territory of each contracting State such legal capacity as may be necessary for the performance of its functions. Full juridical personality shall be granted wherever compatible with the constitution and laws of the State concerned”.

The Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization

The Assembly, comprised of all Member States of ICAO, meets not less than once in three years and is convened by the Council at a suitable time and place. An extraordinary meeting of the Assembly may be held at any time upon the call of the Council or at the request of not less than one-fifth of the total number of Member States. The Assembly has numerous powers and duties, among them to: elect the Member States to be represented on the Council; examine and take appropriate action on the reports of the Council and decide any matter reported to it by the Council; and approve the budgets of the Organization. The Assembly may refer, at its discretion, to the Council, to subsidiary commissions or to any other body any matter within its sphere of action. It can delegate to Council the powers and authority necessary or desirable for the discharge of the duties of ICAO and revoke and modify the delegations of authority at any time; and deal with any matter within the sphere of action of ICAO not specifically assigned to the Council. In general, it reviews in detail the work of the Organization in the technical, administrative, economic, legal and technical cooperation fields. It has the power to approve amendments to the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago, 1944), which are subject to ratification by Member States.

The ICAO Council

The Council is a permanent body of the Organization responsible to the Assembly. It is composed of thirty-six Member States elected by the Assembly for a three-year term. In the election, adequate representation is given to States of chief importance in air transport, States not otherwise included but which make the largest contribution to the provision of facilities for international civil air navigation and States not otherwise included whose designation will ensure that all major geographic areas of the world are represented on the Council.

The Council convenes the Assembly. The Council has numerous functions, notable among which are to submit annual reports to the Assembly; carry out the directions of the Assembly; and discharge the duties and obligations which are laid on it by the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago, 1944). It also administers the finances of ICAO; appoints and defines the duties of the Air Transport Committee, as well as the Committee on Joint Support of Air Navigation Services, the Finance Committee, the Committee on Unlawful Interference, the Technical Co-operation Committee and the Human Resources Committee. It appoints the Members of the Air Navigation Commission and it elects the members of the Edward Warner Award Committee. Another key function of the Council is to appoint the Secretary General.

Concluding remarks on the International Civil Aviation Organization

As one of the two governing bodies of ICAO, the Council gives continuing direction to the work of ICAO. In this regard, one of its major duties is to adopt international Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) and to incorporate these as Annexes to the Chicago Convention. The Council may also amend existing Annexes as necessary. On occasion, the Council may act as an arbiter between Member States on matters concerning aviation and the implementation of the provisions of the Convention; it may investigate any situation which presents avoidable obstacles to the development of international air navigation and, in general, it may take necessary steps to maintain the safety and regularity of international air transport.

Mars One

Planetary protection

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Let’s have a look for this new Space Law article on Space Legal Issues at planetary protection. As humanity first began to send Earth-made space objects into outer space, scientific got concerned about the possibility/risk of forever changing the extraterrestrial environments visited. What if celestial bodies were to be irrevocably altered? Could Earth, if inadvertently carrying exotic organisms back, be contaminated? Could astronauts on their way back to Earth release biohazardous materials? Such concerns were expressed by scientists from around the world shortly before the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, and these concerns have continued to be addressed through the present day. Our human race has a great urge to explore the unknown, but this must be done in a responsible manner that considers the potential impacts of our actions on future exploration.

Planetary protection is a field concerned with keeping actual or possible zones of life pure and unspoiled. A planet’s biosphere is its complete zone of life, its global ecological system, and includes all its living organisms as well as all organic matter that has not yet decomposed. Planetary protection, which mainly focuses on microbial life and on potentially invasive species, is essential for several reasons: to preserve our ability to study other worlds as they exist in their natural states; to avoid contamination that would obscure our ability to find life elsewhere – if it exists; and to ensure that we take prudent precautions to protect Earth’s biosphere in case it does. Typically, planetary protection is divided into two major components, two types of interplanetary contamination (biological contamination of a planetary body by a space probe or spacecraft, either deliberate or unintentional). Forward contamination is the transfer of viable organisms from Earth to another celestial body; it is prevented primarily by sterilizing the spacecraft. Back contamination is the transfer of extraterrestrial organisms, if such exist, back to the Earth’s biosphere. Non-biological forms of contamination have also been considered (objects left on the Moon or Moon Junk). Current space missions are governed by the Outer Space Treaty and the COSPAR guidelines for planetary protection.

History of planetary quarantine

According to Joshua Lederberg (May 23, 1925 – February 2, 2008), American Nobel Laureate known for his work in microbial genetics, “The human species has a vital stake in the orderly, careful, and well-reasoned extension of the cosmic frontier… The introduction of microbial life to a previously barren planet, or to one occupied by a less well-adapted form of life, could result in the explosive growth of the implant… The overgrowth of terrestrial bacteria on Mars would destroy an inestimably valuable opportunity of understanding our own living nature”. Several scientists raised powerful alarms during the first years of space exploration efforts. As the superpowers of the world raced into space, these scientists feared that the exploration vehicles might carry not only instruments, but also a mélange of Earth microorganisms. What effect would these bacteria and viruses have on the pristine environments that they invaded?

Committee on Contamination by Extraterrestrial Exploration (CETEX)

From the beginning years of space exploration, space scientists have taken the threat of contaminating celestial bodies very seriously. In 1956, predating the USSR’s Sputnik program by a year, the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) at its 7th Congress in Rome voiced its concerns regarding possible lunar and planetary contamination and attempted to coordinate international efforts to prevent this from happening. In 1958, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) passed a resolution stating that “The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America urges that scientists plan lunar and planetary studies with great care and deep concern so that initial operations do not compromise and make impossible forever after critical scientific experiments”. This led to the creation in 1958, by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), of the ad hoc Committee on Contamination by Extraterrestrial Exploration (CETEX), which met for a year and recommended that interplanetary spacecraft be sterilized. For CETEX, “The need for sterilization is only temporary. Mars and possibly Venus need to remain uncontaminated only until study by manned ships becomes possible”.

Set up to evaluate the issue of possible contamination by spacecraft and to develop recommendations about quarantine procedures, the standards proposed by the Committee were adopted by the ICSU in October 1958. CETEX recommended that planetary protection be transferred to the newly formed multidisciplinary, international committee of the ICSU, the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). In October 1958, a report issued by a sub-committee of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) described the first code-of-conduct for planetary protection and recommended that the newly formed Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) should resume responsibility for matters of planetary protection. Since that time, COSPAR has provided an international forum to discuss such matters under the terms “planetary quarantine” and later “planetary protection”, and has formulated a COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy with associated implementation requirements as an international standard to protect against interplanetary biological and organic contamination, and after 1967 as a guide to compliance with Article IX of the UN Outer Space Treaty in that area.

The first flight project using the new planetary protection recommendations was the Ranger program. The Ranger program (which took place between 1959 and 1965) was a series of unmanned space missions by the United States of America whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar surface, transmitting those images to Earth until the spacecraft were destroyed upon impact. The Ranger program was NASA’s first successful Moon exploration project. It has enabled the development of many technologies.

COSPAR on planetary protection

The International Council for Science was founded in 1931 to promote international scientific activity in the various branches of science and technology and its application in the interest of humanity; it is one of the oldest non-governmental organizations in the world, representing the evolution and expansion of two earlier bodies known as the International Association of Academies (1899 – 1914) and the International Research Council (1919 – 1931). The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) was established by the International Council for Science (ICSU) in 1958. During the Cold War, scientific exchanges between Eastern and Western countries had ceased and the creation of COSPAR was a first step towards East-West scientific cooperation. This particular situation explains the mode of appointment of the two vice-presidents who are not elected but appointed independently by the academies of Washington and Moscow. Following the launch of the first satellites in 1957 and 1958, it was recognized that observing their orbits required close international cooperation. Later, COSPAR created a large number of specialized working groups whose results are regularly published by the organization. COSPAR continues to serve as the international policy-making body on planetary protection, and it is a consultative body to the United Nations’ Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Acting on the advice of its Consultative Group on Potentially Harmful Effects of Space Experiments, COSPAR in 1964 issued Resolution 26 (COSPAR, 1964, p. 26), which “affirms that the search for extraterrestrial life is an important objective of space research, that the planet of Mars may offer the only feasible opportunity to conduct this search during the foreseeable future, that contamination of this planet would make such a search far more difficult and possibly even prevent for all time an unequivocal result, that all practical steps should be taken to ensure that Mars be not biologically contaminated until such time as this search can have been satisfactorily carried out, and that cooperation in proper scheduling of experiments and use of adequate spacecraft sterilization techniques is required on the part of all deep space probe launching authorities to avoid such contamination”.

Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty (1967)

Language related to planetary protection was incorporated into Article IX of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, which states that “In the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, States Parties to the Treaty shall be guided by the principle of cooperation and mutual assistance and shall conduct all their activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties to the Treaty. States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose. If a State Party to the Treaty has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by it or its nationals in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities of other States Parties in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, it shall undertake appropriate international consultations before proceeding with any such activity or experiment. A State Party to the Treaty which has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by another State Party in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, may request consultation concerning the activity or experiment”.

Many countries have signed and ratified the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, and so are legally bound by the Treaty’s requirement to avoid harmful contamination of the Moon and other celestial bodies. The treaty was the second so-called non-armament treaty of the Cold War and was in some respects modelled on its predecessor, the Antarctic Treaty, which entered into force in 1961. Article IX of the Antarctic Treaty called for states that are parties to the treaty to recommend measures to further “the preservation and conservation of living resources in Antarctica”. Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty, however, is ambiguous with respect to whether its focus is on protecting celestial bodies themselves or the scientific interests of those countries exploring them. A policy review of the Outer Space Treaty concluded that, while Article IX “imposed international obligations on all state parties to protect and preserve the environmental integrity of outer space and celestial bodies such as Mars” there is no definition as to what constitutes harmful contamination, nor does the treaty specify under what circumstances it would be necessary to “adopt appropriate measures” or which measures would in fact be “appropriate”. An earlier legal review, however, argued that “if the assumption is made that the parties to the treaty were not merely being verbose” and “harmful contamination” is not simply redundant, “harmful” should be interpreted as “harmful to the interests of other states” and since “states have an interest in protecting their ongoing space programs”, Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty must mean that “any contamination which would result in harm to a state’s experiments or programs is to be avoided”.

Today

In 1975, the Viking Lander Capsule 1 & 2 (American space probes sent to Mars; each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface) were subjected to terminal sterilization using dry heat microbial reduction. In 1984, COSPAR accepted revised planetary protection policy that included the mission categories (I-IV) that focused on target bodies and mission types. Recently, COSPAR has updated its Planetary Protection Policy. Its Preamble enounces the following: “Noting that COSPAR has concerned itself with questions of biological contamination and spaceflight since its very inception, and noting that Article IX of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (also known as the UN Space Treaty of 1967) states that States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter, and where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose, therefore, COSPAR maintains and promulgates this planetary protection policy for the reference of spacefaring nations, both as an international standard on procedures to avoid organic-constituent and biological contamination in space exploration, and to provide accepted guidelines in this area to guide compliance with the wording of this UN Space Treaty and other relevant international agreements”.

It then “notes with appreciation and interest the extensive work done by the Panel on Standards for Space probe Sterilization and its successors the Panel on Planetary Quarantine and the Panel on Planetary Protection and accepts that for certain space mission/target body combinations, controls on contamination shall be imposed in accordance with a specified range of requirements, based on the following policy statement: The conduct of scientific investigations of possible extraterrestrial life forms, precursors, and remnants must not be jeopardized. In addition, the Earth must be protected from the potential hazard posed by extraterrestrial matter carried by a spacecraft returning from an interplanetary mission. Therefore, for certain space mission/target planet combinations, controls on contamination shall be imposed in accordance with issuances implementing this policy”.

The five categories for target body/mission type combinations and their respective suggested ranges of requirements are the following: Category I includes any mission to a target body which is not of direct interest for understanding the process of chemical evolution or the origin of life. No protection of such bodies is warranted and no planetary protection requirements are imposed by this policy. Category II missions comprise all types of missions to those target bodies where there is significant interest relative to the process of chemical evolution and the origin of life, but where there is only a remote chance that contamination carried by a spacecraft could compromise future investigations. The requirements are for simple documentation only. Preparation of a short planetary protection plan is required for these flight projects primarily to outline intended or potential impact targets, brief Pre- and Post-launch analyses detailing impact strategies, and a Post-encounter and End-of-Mission Report which will provide the location of impact if such an event occurs. Solar system bodies considered to be classified as Category II are listed in the document. Category III missions comprise certain types of missions (mostly flyby and orbiter) to a target body of chemical evolution and/or origin of life interest and for which scientific opinion provides a significant chance of contamination which could compromise future investigations. Requirements will consist of documentation (more involved than Category II) and some implementing procedures, including trajectory biasing, the use of cleanrooms during spacecraft assembly and testing, and possibly bioburden reduction. Although no impact is intended for Category III missions, an inventory of bulk constituent organics is required if the probability of impact is significant. Category III specifications for selected solar system bodies are set forth in document. Solar system bodies considered to be classified as Category III also are listed in the document.

Category IV missions comprise certain types of missions (mostly probe and lander) to a target body of chemical evolution and/or origin of life interest and for which scientific opinion provides a significant chance of contamination which could compromise future investigations. Requirements imposed include rather detailed documentation (more involved than Category III), including a bioassay to enumerate the bioburden, a probability of contamination analysis, an inventory of the bulk constituent organics and an increased number of implementing procedures. The implementing procedures required may include trajectory biasing, cleanrooms, bioburden reduction, possible partial sterilization of the direct contact hardware and a bioshield for that hardware. The requirements and compliance are similar to those used for Viking Lander Capsule 1 & 2, with the exception of complete lander/probe sterilization. Category IV specifications for selected solar system bodies are set forth in the document. Solar system bodies considered to be classified as Category IV also are listed in the document. For Category IV missions, a certain level of biological burden is allowed for the mission. In general this is expressed as a “probability of contamination”.

Category V missions comprise all Earth-return missions. The concern for these missions is the protection of the terrestrial system, the Earth and the Moon (the Moon must be protected from back contamination to retain freedom from planetary protection requirements on Earth-Moon travel). For solar system bodies deemed by scientific opinion to have no indigenous life forms, a subcategory “unrestricted Earth return” is defined. Missions in this subcategory have planetary protection requirements on the outbound phase only, corresponding to the category of that phase (typically Category I or II). For all other Category V missions, in a subcategory defined as “restricted Earth return” the highest degree of concern is expressed by the absolute prohibition of destructive impact upon return, the need for containment throughout the return phase of all returned hardware which directly contacted the target body or unsterilized material from the body, and the need for containment of any unsterilized sample collected and returned to Earth. Post-mission, there is a need to conduct timely analyses of any unsterilized sample collected and returned to Earth, under strict containment, and using the most sensitive techniques. If any sign of the existence of a nonterrestrial replicating entity is found, the returned sample must remain contained unless treated by an effective sterilizing procedure. Category V concerns are reflected in requirements that encompass those of Category IV plus a continuing monitoring of project activities, studies and research.

Missions to Mars and planetary protection

For Mars, special requirements have been made. Lander systems not carrying instruments for the investigations of extant Martian life are restricted to a surface biological burden level (landers that do not search for Martian life will use the Viking lander pre-sterilization requirements). For lander systems designed to investigate extant Martian life, the subsystems which are involved in the acquisition, delivery, and analysis of samples used for life detection must be sterilized to these levels, and a method of preventing recontamination of the sterilized subsystems and the contamination of the material to be analysed is in place. Any component that accesses a Martian special region must be sterilized to at least the Viking post-sterilization biological burden levels. A special region, according to COSPAR, is a region classified by COSPAR where terrestrial organisms could readily propagate, or thought to have a high potential for existence of Martian life forms. This is understood to apply to any region on Mars where liquid water occurs, or can occasionally occur, based on the current understanding of requirements for life. For samples from locations judged by scientific opinion to have no indigenous lifeforms, no special requirements. If scientific opinion is not sure, the requirements include the absolute prohibition of destructive impact upon return, the containment of all returned hardware which directly contacted the target body, and the containment of any unsterilized sample returned to Earth.

Planetary protection depends on a set of policies and practices designed to prevent the contamination of celestial bodies by terrestrial microorganisms that could hitchhike on a spacecraft, survive the trip, and grow and multiply on a planet, moon, asteroid, or comet – forward contamination – and to prevent the potential for any putative extraterrestrial biota that might be returned to Earth on sample return missions to contaminate Earth – back contamination. Let’s hope that Martian and lunar missions will respect those principles.

The General Assembly Resolution 1721

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Let’s have a look, for this new Space Law article on Space Legal Issues, at the General Assembly Resolution 1721.

The United Nations General Assembly

The General Assembly is one of the six main organs of the United Nations, the only one in which all Member States have equal representation: one nation, one vote. Today, all one hundred and ninety-three Member States of the United Nations are represented in this unique forum to discuss and work together on a wide array of international issues covered by the UN Charter, such as development, peace and security, international law, etc. Each year, all the Members meet in the General Assembly Hall in New York for the annual General Assembly session. The General Assembly (GA) is the main deliberative, policy-making and representative organ of the UN. Decisions on important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority. Decisions on other questions are by simple majority. Each country has one vote. Some Member States in arrear of payment may be granted the right to vote.

When a United Nations General Assembly resolution first alluded to space activities, the day after Sputnik I was sent, it was with the major concern of military danger. That’s why it was the resolution on REGULATION, LIMITATION AND BALANCED REDUCTION OF ALL ARMED FORCES AND ALL ARMAMENTS; CONCLUSION OF AN INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION (TREATY) ON THE REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS AND THE PROHIBITION OF ATOMIC, HYDROGEN AND OTHER WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION – 1148 (XII) of November 14, 1957, which provided the study of a system of control intended to make sure that the launching of machines in outer space would only be used for peaceful and scientific purposes: “The joint study of an inspection system designed to ensure that the sending of objects through outer space shall be exclusively for peaceful and scientific purposes”. From the beginning of 1958, correspondence was exchanged between Dwight D. Eisenhower (United States of America) and Nikita Khrushchev (USSR); in February of the same year, a proposal by the Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker, suggested the creation by the General Assembly of an International Body for Outer Space. This culminated with the Soviet request of March 15, 1958 and the United States request of September 2, 1958, referring to the General Assembly the need of international cooperation in space matters.

The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS)

The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the General Assembly in 1959 to govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity: for peace, security and development. The Committee was tasked with reviewing international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space, studying space-related activities that could be undertaken by the United Nations, encouraging space research programmes, and studying legal problems arising from the exploration of outer space. The Committee was instrumental in the creation of the five treaties and five principles of outer space. International cooperation in space exploration and the use of space technology applications to meet global development goals are discussed in the Committee every year. Owing to rapid advances in space technology, the space agenda is constantly evolving. The Committee provides a unique platform at the global level to monitor and discuss these developments. The Committee has two subsidiary bodies: the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee, and the Legal Subcommittee, both established in 1961.

Its first session was held in May and June of 1959 and produced a useful account of current activities in outer space. Some of the suggestions of this session provided a basis for follow-up action later in the United Nations. However, only 13 of the 18 countries on the Committee attended this session. Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union refused to attend, expressing dissatisfaction with the composition of the Committee. India and the United Arab Republic also did not attend. There is widespread interest in the United Nations in fostering international co-operation in outer space for two basic reasons: first, to maximize co-operation between the two major space Powers despite their political differences; and second, to encourage the increased peaceful uses of outer space to benefit all countries irrespective of the stage of their economic or scientific development. Countries realize that activities going forward in outer space – satellites helping to forecast the weather, to increase communications, to improve navigational conditions, to test for radioactivity, to do basic research – will all make their impact on everyone on this earth with increasing force.

The General Assembly Resolution 1721 (XVI)

The General Assembly has adopted since 1958 many resolutions entitled “International co-operation in the peaceful uses of outer space”. These resolutions have laid out the framework for the deliberations in the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the activities to be undertaken within the Programme on Space Applications of the Office for Outer Space Affairs. While resolutions adopted by the General Assembly are not legally binding, many resolutions dealing with issues related to outer space have offered valuable guidance to States on the conduct of space activities. Many provisions of the General Assembly resolutions related to outer space have become widely accepted by the international space community.

During the 1085th plenary meeting that took place on December 20, 1961 in the General Assembly Hall in New York, United States of America, the General Assembly of the United Nations, after an introduction reaffirming general principles (“Recognizing the common interest of mankind in furthering the peaceful uses of outer space and the urgent need to strengthen international co-operation in this important field, Believing that the exploration and use of outer space should be only for the betterment of mankind and to the benefit of States irrespective of the stage of their economic or scientific development”), enacted International Space Law’s basis.

In a first point part A, UNGA states that “International law, including the Charter of the United Nations, applies to outer space and celestial bodies” and that “Outer space and celestial bodies are free for exploration and use by all States in conformity with international law and are not subject to national appropriation”. In a second point part A, UNGA “Invites the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to study and report on the legal problems which may arise from the exploration and use of outer space”. Therefore, outer space and celestial bodies fall under the rule of international law and COPUOS becomes responsible for studying space-related legal issues.

In a first point part B, UNGA “Calls upon States launching objects into orbit or beyond to furnish information promptly to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, through the Secretary-General, for the registration of launchings” and in a second point, it “Requests the Secretary-General to maintain a public registry of the information furnished in accordance with paragraph 1 above”. The General Assembly then requests COPUOS in co-operation with the Secretary-General, “to maintain close contact with governmental and non-governmental organizations concerned with outer space matters”.

The General Assembly in the following points focuses on the progresses in meteorological science and technology opened up by the advances in outer space, and convinced of the world-wide benefits to be derived from international co-operation in weather research and analysis, recommends to all Member States and to the World Meteorological Organization “to develop existing weather forecasting capabilities and to help Member States make effective use of such capabilities through regional meteorological centres”.

In its part D, the General Assembly states that “communication by means of satellites should be available to the nations of the world as soon as practicable on a global and non-discriminatory basis”. Convinced of the need to prepare the way for the establishment of effective operational satellite communication, UNGA “Notes with satisfaction that the International Telecommunication Union plans to call a special conference in 1963 to make allocations of radio frequency bands for outer space activities” and “Recommends that the International Telecommunication Union consider at that conference those aspects of space communication in which international co-operation will be required”.

Finally, in its part E, the General Assembly, recalling its resolution 1472 (XIV) of December 12, 1959, noting that the terms of office of the members of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space expire at the end of 1961, “Decides to continue the membership of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space as set forth in General Assembly resolution 1472 (XIV) and to add Chad, Mongolia, Morocco and Sierra Leone to its membership in recognition of the increased membership of the United Nations since the Committee was established”.

As a conclusion, we may say that the General Assembly Resolution 1721 came to strengthen the idea of a peaceful use of outer space and established a voluntary system for the registration of space objects in an international register. It also represented the effort of UNCOPUOS to set aside any statements that outer space could eventually constitute a form of res nullius, therefore subjected to sovereignty claims. The rule presented by this resolution, allowed the understanding that the principle of non-appropriation of outer space was already effectively consolidated in International Law by that time. That is what we can say about the General Assembly Resolution 1721.

The Chicago Convention of 1944

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The Chicago Convention of 1944, or Convention on International Civil Aviation, drafted in 1944 by fifty-four nations, was established to promote cooperation and “create and preserve friendship and understanding among the nations and peoples of the world”. Known more commonly today as the Chicago Convention, this landmark agreement established the core principles permitting international transport by air, and led to the creation of the specialised agency which has overseen it ever since, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The history of the Chicago Convention of 1944

The Second World War was a powerful catalyst for the technical development of the aeroplane. A vast network of passenger and freight carriage was set up during this period, but there were many obstacles, both political and technical, to evolving these facilities and routes to their new civilian purposes. Subsequent to several studies initiated by the United States, as well as various consultations it undertook with its Major Allies, the U.S. government sent an invitation to fifty-five States to attend an International Civil Aviation Conference in Chicago in 1944. Those States were the following: Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, the French Delegation, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, the Union of South Africa, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, the Danish Minister in Washington and the Thai Minister in Washington.

The invitation stated that “The Government of the United States believes that an international civil aviation conference might profitably be convened within the near future, for the purpose of agreeing on an increase in existing services and on the early establishment of international air routes and services for operation in and to areas now freed from danger of military interruption, such arrangements to continue during a transitional period. This conference might also agree so far as possible upon the principles of a permanent international structure of civil aviation and air transport, and might set up appropriate interim committees to prepare definitive proposals. Definitive action on such proposals, based on practical experience gained during the interim period, might be taken either as a result of a later conference, or by direct approval of the governments without the necessity of conference”.

Its content

Representatives of fifty-five Nations met at Chicago from November 1 to December 7, 1944, to make arrangements for the immediate establishment of provisional world air routes and services and to set up an interim council to collect, record and study data concerning international aviation and to make recommendations for its improvement. The Conference was also invited to discuss the principles and methods to be followed in the adoption of a new aviation convention. As a result was signed the Convention on International Civil Aviation.

The PREAMBLE of the CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION signed at Chicago on December 7, 1944 states that “WHEREAS the future development of international civil aviation can greatly help to create and preserve friendship and understanding among the nations and peoples of the world, yet its abuse can become a threat to the general security; and WHEREAS it is desirable to avoid friction and to promote that cooperation between nations and peoples upon which the peace of the world depends; THEREFORE, the undersigned governments having agreed on certain principles and arrangements in order that international civil aviation may be developed in a safe and orderly manner and that international air transport services may be established on the basis of equality of opportunity and operated soundly and economically; Have accordingly concluded this Convention to that end”. Let’s list some of the most important articles.

Article 1 on the GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION enounces that “The contracting States recognize that every State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory”. Article 2 states that “For the purposes of this Convention the territory of a State shall be deemed to be the land areas and territorial waters adjacent thereto under the sovereignty, suzerainty, protection or mandate of such State”. Article 3 on Civil and state aircraft explains that “a) This Convention shall be applicable only to civil aircraft, and shall not be applicable to state aircraft. b) Aircraft used in military, customs and police services shall be deemed to be state aircraft. c) No state aircraft of a contracting State shall fly over the territory of another State or land thereon without authorization by special agreement or otherwise, and in accordance with the terms thereof. d) The contracting States undertake, when issuing regulations for their state aircraft, that they will have due regard for the safety of navigation of civil aircraft”. Article 5 on the Right of non-scheduled flight tells that “Each contracting State agrees that all aircraft of the other contracting States, being aircraft not engaged in scheduled international air services shall have the right, subject to the observance of the terms of this Convention, to make flights into or in transit non-stop across its territory and to make stops for non-traffic purposes without the necessity of obtaining prior permission, and subject to the right of the State flown over to require landing. Each contracting State nevertheless reserves the right, for reasons of safety of flight, to require aircraft desiring to proceed over regions which are inaccessible or without adequate air navigation facilities to follow prescribed routes, or to obtain special permission for such flights. Such aircraft, if engaged in the carriage of passengers, cargo, or mail for remuneration or hire on other than scheduled international air services, shall also, subject to the provisions of Article 7, have the privilege of taking on or discharging passengers, cargo, or mail, subject to the right of any State where such embarkation or discharge takes place to impose such regulations, conditions or limitations as it may consider desirable”.

Article 9 on Prohibited areas express that “a) Each contracting State may, for reasons of military necessity or public safety, restrict or prohibit uniformly the aircraft of other States from flying over certain areas of its territory, provided that no distinction in this respect is made between the aircraft of the State whose territory is involved, engaged in international scheduled airline services, and the aircraft of the other contracting States likewise engaged. Such prohibited areas shall be of reasonable extent and location so as not to interfere unnecessarily with air navigation. Descriptions of such prohibited areas in the territory of a contracting State, as well as any subsequent alterations therein, shall be communicated as soon as possible to the other contracting States and to the International Civil Aviation Organization. b) Each contracting State reserves also the right, in exceptional circumstances or during a period of emergency, or in the interest of public safety, and with immediate effect temporarily to restrict or prohibit flying over the whole or any part of its territory, on condition that such restriction or prohibition shall be applicable without distinction of nationality to aircraft of all other States. c) Each contracting State, under such regulations as it may prescribe, may require any aircraft entering the areas contemplated in subparagraphs a) or b) above to effect a landing as soon as practicable thereafter at some designated airport within its territory”.

Article 12 on Rules of the air relates that “Each contracting State undertakes to adopt measures to insure that every aircraft flying over or manoeuvring within its territory and that every aircraft carrying its nationality mark, wherever such aircraft may be, shall comply with the rules and regulations relating to the flight and manoeuvre of aircraft there in force. Each contracting State undertakes to keep its own regulations in these respects uniform, to the greatest possible extent, with those established from time to time under this Convention. Over the high seas, the rules in force shall be those established under this Convention. Each contracting State undertakes to insure the prosecution of all persons violating the regulations applicable”. Article 14 on Prevention of spread of disease affirms that “Each contracting State agrees to take effective measures to prevent the spread by means of air navigation of cholera, typhus (epidemic), smallpox, yellow fever, plague, and such other communicable diseases as the contracting States shall from time to time decide to designate, and to that end contracting States will keep in close consultation with the agencies concerned with international regulations relating to sanitary measures applicable to aircraft. Such consultation shall be without prejudice to the application of any existing international convention on this subject to which the contracting States may be parties”.

Article 16 on Search of aircraft tells that “The appropriate authorities of each of the contracting States shall have the right, without unreasonable delay, to search aircraft of the other contracting States on landing or departure, and to inspect the certificates and other documents prescribed by this Convention”. Article 29 on Documents carried in aircraft states that “Every aircraft of a contracting State, engaged in international navigation, shall carry the following documents in conformity with the conditions prescribed in this Convention: a) Its certificate of registration; b) Its certificate of airworthiness; c) The appropriate licenses for each member of the crew; d) Its journey log book; e) If it is equipped with radio apparatus, the aircraft radio station license; f) If it carries passengers, a list of their names and places of embarkation and destination; g) If it carries cargo, a manifest and detailed declarations of the cargo”.

Article 40 of the Chicago Convention of 1944 on the Validity of endorsed certificates and licenses relates that “No aircraft or personnel having certificates or licenses so endorsed shall participate in international navigation, except with the permission of the State or States whose territory is entered. The registration or use of any such aircraft, or of any certificated aircraft part, in any State other than that in which it was originally certificated shall be at the discretion of the State into which the aircraft or part is imported”.

As a result, the Chicago Convention of 1944 or Magna Carta of Air Law confirmed the total primacy of states in the regulation of air transport (a country can thus prohibit overflight of nuclear power plants and Canada has been able to create exclusion zones above prisons, to limit risk of escape by helicopter), established rules of the air and rules for the registration of aircraft, and specifies the rights and duties of signatory countries in the field of Air Law relating to international air transport (with the more complex case of military aircraft and more recently, military or civilian drones). That is what we can say about the Chicago Convention of 1944.

The Committee on Space Research

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The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) is an international scientific group whose purpose is to organize any scientific work related to space exploration. It was created in 1958 by the International Council for Science, during the International Geophysical Year, and is based in Paris, France. COSPAR was born just after the launch of Sputnik 1 and its Scientific Assemblies soon became the cradle from which the space research community developed and gave rise to many international projects from which we continue to benefit.

The International Geophysical Year (1957 – 1958)

The third edition of the International Polar Year was called the International Geophysical Year. It was characterized by the massive use of technologies inherited from the Second World War and reinvested in the scientific field, starting with the radar. Many expeditions to Antarctica were placed under the voluntary coordination of seventy countries in the midst of the Cold War. This IGY impelled the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 (Article 2 of which provides for freedom of scientific research and cooperation in Antarctica, as practiced during the International Geophysical Year: “The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and well-being. They will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.”) as well as the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (also known as the Madrid Protocol) in 1991; as a result emerged different principles such as the principle of freezing territorial claims, the principle of non-militarization and non-nuclearization or the principle of freedom of scientific research.

The International Geophysical Year, although not primarily devoted to space research, is at the direct origin of the sending of satellites into space, and therefore of the appearance in this field of legal issues of an international character. After the organisation – at the end of the nineteenth century and between the two world wars – of two International Polar Years dedicated to the study of meteorological and magnetic phenomena, and to measurements at altitude, scientists came up, in the summer of 1950, with the idea of ​​a third International Polar Year (these scientists, who had extensive relations in academic circles and with their governments, felt that, given the advances in the field of equipment for the study of Earth such as rockets, radars and computing devices, a scientific event was to be organized without delay and proposed to extend the scope of investigation to the whole Earth). Several unions grouped in the “International Council of Scientific Unions” decided in October 1951 to form a special committee to prepare what will be later called the International Geophysical Year. The first working session of the Committee took place in July 1953 in Brussels and it established a program covering two complete solar periods (July 1, 1957 to December 31, 1958); the eleventh commission of the Committee, devoted to rockets and satellites, made many inquiries concerning the Polar Regions, the terrestrial atmosphere, and solar influences. Rockets and satellites were then to be launched, intended to study the upper atmosphere. In September 1954 in Rome, the Committee considered as possible the projection of temporary satellites equipped with instruments capable of providing emitting stations with information on the phenomena of the upper atmosphere and outer space, in particular under the influence of solar radiation and corpuscles.

The United States of America and the Soviet Union announced in July 1955 that they would each launch an artificial satellite on the occasion of this event (no stake other than scientific was attached to this objective at the time). The setbacks of the Vanguard program (with seven failures on eleven shots between 1957 and 1959), chosen to represent the American contribution to the IGY, earned the USSR, to everyone’s surprise, to be the first power to put into orbit the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957. As for the United States of America, its president Dwight D. Eisenhower, finally confided to the team of the German scientist Wernher von Braun the mission to launch the first artificial satellite. Thus, the first American satellite, Explorer 1, was finally launched on February 1, 1958 by a Jupiter-C rocket. It allowed one of the most important discoveries of the IGY: the Van Allen radiation belt discovered using an onboard instrument developed by Professor James Van Allen.

The International Geophysical Year was also an opportunity for nations such as France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and Australia to develop rocket programs for the exploration of the upper atmosphere. This is how France developed the IGY version of the Véronique rocket, which could carry a payload of 60 kg at a 210 km altitude; the Véronique rocket was the first rocket to take off from the Guiana space centre in Kourou, Guyana, on 9 April 1968, following the closure of Hammaguir in July 1967.

The International Council for Science

The International Council for Science was founded in 1931 to promote international scientific activity in the various branches of science and technology and its application in the interest of humanity; it is one of the oldest non-governmental organizations in the world, representing the evolution and expansion of two earlier bodies known as the International Association of Academies (1899 – 1914) and the International Research Council (1919 – 1931). ICSU (after its former name, International Council of Scientific Unions) was created to bring science scientists together in an international scientific enterprise. Among its missions, ICSU wants “To identify and address major issues of importance to science and society, by mobilising the resources and knowledge of the international scientific community; to promote the participation of all scientists, irrespective of race, citizenship, language, political stance or gender in the international scientific endeavour; to facilitate interactions between different scientific disciplines and between scientists from Developing and Developed countries; to stimulate constructive debate by acting as an authoritative independent voice for international science and scientists”. One of the fundamental principles of The International Council for Science is the universality of science, which asserts the right and freedom for scientists to associate in an international scientific activity regardless of any factors such as race, nationality, sex, language or political ideology. The council acts as a forum for the exchange of ideas, information and the development of scientific standards. Hundreds of congresses, symposia and other scientific meetings are organized every year in the world and a large number of newsletters, manuals and newspapers are published. The main resource of ICSU is the contribution it receives from its members, which are national scientific bodies and international scientific unions.

The ICSU’ Principle of Universality of Science states that “the free and responsible practice of science is fundamental to scientific advancement and human and environmental well-being. Such practice, in all its aspects, requires freedom of movement, association, expression and communication for scientists, as well as equitable access to data, information, and other resources for research. It requires responsibility at all levels to carry out and communicate scientific work with integrity, respect, fairness, trustworthiness, and transparency, recognising its benefits and possible harms. In advocating the free and responsible practice of science, ICSU promotes equitable opportunities for access to science and its benefits, and opposes discrimination based on such factors as ethnic origin, religion, citizenship, language, political or other opinion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or age”. Adherence to this Principle is a condition of ICSU membership. The Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science “serves as the guardian of the Principle and undertakes a variety of actions to defend scientific freedoms and promote integrity and responsibility”.

The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR)

The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) was established by the International Council for Science (ICSU) in 1958. During the Cold War, scientific exchanges between Eastern and Western countries had ceased and the creation of COSPAR was a first step towards East-West scientific cooperation. This particular situation explains the mode of appointment of the two vice-presidents who are not elected but appointed independently by the academies of Washington and Moscow. Following the launch of the first satellites in 1957 and 1958, it was recognised that observing their orbits required close international cooperation. Later, COSPAR created a large number of specialised working groups whose results are regularly published by the organisation.

The Committee on Space Research Charter states that “COSPAR shall be a Scientific Committee of ICSU. Its objectives shall be to promote on an international level scientific research in space, with emphasis on the exchange of results, information and opinions, and to provide a forum, open to all scientists, for the discussion of problems that may affect scientific space research. This shall be achieved through the organization of scientific assemblies, publications or any other means. COSPAR shall report to ICSU on its activities and provide scientific advice on matters concerning scientific space research to the UN and other organizations as required”. COSPAR shall consist of two kinds of Members: “National Scientific Institutions, as defined by ICSU, which are engaged in space research and seek membership in COSPAR, and International Scientific Unions federated in ICSU which seek membership in COSPAR”.

Thus, the Mission of the Committee on Space Research is first and foremost Service to the International Space Science Community, in their pursuit of a vibrant international space research effort, conducted without impediment from geopolitical tensions or differences. The space science community, in turn, is dependent upon the space programs of their nation or region, and thus the Mission of COSPAR also includes Service to Developed Space Programs and Service to Developing Space Programs. The general responsibilities of Scientific Commissions, as approved by the COSPAR Plenary, Bangalore, June 1979, and reconfirmed by the COSPAR Plenary, Budapest, June, 1980, “are: 1. To discuss, formulate and coordinate internationally cooperative experimental investigations in space; 2. To encourage interactions between experimenters and theoreticians, in order to maximize space science results, especially interpretation arising out of analyses of the observations; 3. To stimulate and coordinate the exchange of scientific results; 4. To plan symposia and topical meetings for discussion of the results of space research, with an appropriate mixture of review and contributed papers; 5. To carry out these tasks in the closest possible association with other organizations interested in these and related tasks; 6. To select an editor for the “Advances in Space Research” Journal for each symposium and for each topical meeting organized by the Commission; 7. To prepare a statement on recent scientific developments in the area of interest to the Commission for the COSPAR Report to the United Nations”.

The Committee on Space Research on planetary protection

Planetary protection is a guiding principle in the design of an interplanetary mission, aiming to prevent biological contamination of both the target celestial body and the Earth in the case of sample-return missions. Planetary protection reflects both the unknown nature of the space environment and the desire of the scientific community to preserve the pristine nature of celestial bodies until they can be studied in detail. In 1958 a report prepared by a sub-committee of the International Council for Science provided a guide to global protection and recommended that COSPAR, which had just been established, should enact planetary protection rules. In 1964, COSPAR defined a first set of quantitative targets to be met. Planetary protection rules were applied for the first time to NASA’s Ranger program, a series of unmanned space missions by the United States of America in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon.

As a result of the Committee on Space Research’s implications, Article IX of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (entered into force on October 10, 1967) was written in the Magna Carta of Space Law and enounces that “In the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, States Parties to the Treaty shall be guided by the principle of cooperation and mutual assistance and shall conduct all their activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties to the Treaty. States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose. If a State Party to the Treaty has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by it or its nationals in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities of other States Parties in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, it shall undertake appropriate international consultations before proceeding with any such activity or experiment. A State Party to the Treaty which has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by another State Party in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, may request consultation concerning the activity or experiment”.

COSPAR, which has concerned itself with questions of biological contamination and spaceflight since its very inception, keeps working on the subject and regularly publishes articles about it. That is what we can say about the Committee on Space Research.

Explorer 1

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Explorer 1 (officially Satellite 1958 Alpha) is the first artificial satellite placed in orbit by the United States of America. It was launched on January 31, 1958 by a Juno I rocket from the Cape Canaveral Launch Pad in Florida. The launch of the satellite was initially scheduled as part of the International Geophysical Year. This objective transformed into a national issue when the Soviet Union succeeded in getting ahead of the United States of America by orbiting Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957.

The International Geophysical Year (1957 – 1958) and Explorer 1

The third edition of the International Polar Year was called the International Geophysical Year. It was characterised by the massive use of technologies inherited from the Second World War and reinvested in the scientific field, starting with the radar. Many expeditions to Antarctica were placed under the voluntary coordination of seventy countries in the midst of the Cold War. This IGY impelled the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 (Article 2 of which provides for freedom of scientific research and cooperation in Antarctica, as practiced during the International Geophysical Year: “The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and well-being. They will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.”) as well as the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (also known as the Madrid Protocol) in 1991; as a result emerged different principles such as the principle of freezing territorial claims, the principle of non-militarization and non-nuclearization or the principle of freedom of scientific research.

The International Geophysical Year, although not primarily devoted to space research, is at the direct origin of the sending of satellites into space, and therefore of the appearance in this field of legal issues of an international character. After the organisation – at the end of the nineteenth century and between the two world wars – of two International Polar Years dedicated to the study of meteorological and magnetic phenomena, and to measurements at altitude, scientists came up, in the summer of 1950, with the idea of ​​a third International Polar Year (these scientists, who had extensive relations in academic circles and with their governments, felt that, given the advances in the field of equipment for the study of Earth such as rockets, radars and computing devices, a scientific event was to be organized without delay and proposed to extend the scope of investigation to the whole Earth). Several unions grouped in the “International Council of Scientific Unions” decided in October 1951 to form a special committee to prepare what will be later called the International Geophysical Year. The first working session of the Committee took place in July 1953 in Brussels and it established a program covering two complete solar periods (July 1, 1957 to December 31, 1958); the eleventh commission of the Committee, devoted to rockets and satellites, made many inquiries concerning the Polar Regions, the terrestrial atmosphere, and solar influences. Rockets and satellites were then to be launched, intended to study the upper atmosphere. In September 1954 in Rome, the Committee considered as possible the projection of temporary satellites equipped with instruments capable of providing emitting stations with information on the phenomena of the upper atmosphere and outer space, in particular under the influence of solar radiation and corpuscles.

The United States of America and the Soviet Union announced in July 1955 that they would each launch an artificial satellite on the occasion of this event (no stake other than scientific was attached to this objective at the time). The setbacks of the Vanguard program (with seven failures on eleven shots between 1957 and 1959), chosen to represent the American contribution to the IGY, earned the USSR, to everyone’s surprise, to be the first power to put into orbit the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957. As for the United States of America, its president Dwight D. Eisenhower, finally confided to the team of the German scientist Wernher von Braun the mission to launch the first artificial satellite. Thus, the first American satellite, Explorer 1, was finally launched on February 1, 1958 by a Jupiter-C rocket. It allowed one of the most important discoveries of the IGY: the Van Allen radiation belt discovered using an onboard instrument developed by Professor James Van Allen.

The International Geophysical Year was also an opportunity for nations such as France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and Australia to develop rocket programs for the exploration of the upper atmosphere. This is how France developed the IGY version of the Véronique rocket, which could carry a payload of sixty kilograms at a two hundred and ten kilometres altitude; the Véronique rocket was the first rocket to take off from the Guiana space centre in Kourou, Guyana, on April 9, 1968, following the closure of Hammaguir in July 1967.

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to seaport for ships or airport for aircraft; the word spaceport, and even more so cosmodrome, has traditionally been used for sites capable of launching spacecraft into orbit around Earth or on interplanetary trajectories. However, rocket launch sites for purely sub-orbital flights are sometimes called spaceports, as in recent years new and proposed sites for suborbital human flights have been frequently referred to or named spaceports. Space stations and proposed future bases on the Moon are sometimes called spaceports, in particular if intended as a base for further journeys.

In 1948, the Navy transferred the former Banana River Naval Air Station located south of Cape Canaveral, to the Air Force for use in testing captured German V-2 rockets. Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) (known as Cape Kennedy Air Force Station from 1963 to 1973) is an installation of the United States Air Force Space Command’s 45th Space Wing. United States Air Force’s main U.S. rocket launch facility, the spaceport is located in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was created in 1950 to perform long-range rocket tests safely. The site’s location on the East Florida coast was ideal for this purpose in that launches would be over the ocean, away from populated areas. Subsequently, it was used to test ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. It is from Cape Canaveral that the first rockets carrying satellites and space probes and the inhabited missions of the Mercury and Gemini programs started. NASA, after exclusive use of the Air Force’s facilities, chose to build its own facility on Merritt Island, on the other side of the Banana River: Launch Complex 39 (LC-39).

Juno I

Juno I, also called Jupiter-C, is the launcher used by the United States of America to orbit its first satellites. This rocket was developed by German Wernher von Braun from the Redstone ballistic missile in the end of the 1950s. The launching of the Soviet Sputnik was the starting point for the US-Soviet space race. Project Orbiter was a proposed United States spacecraft, an early competitor to Project Vanguard (a program managed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, which intended to orbit from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida, the first artificial satellite using a Vanguard rocket as launch vehicle). It was jointly run by the United States Army and United States Navy. It was ultimately rejected by the Ad Hoc Committee on Special Capabilities, which selected Project Vanguard instead. Although the project was cancelled on August 3, 1955, the basic design was used for the Juno I rocket which launched Explorer 1. The Juno I launcher was tasked with meeting the Soviet challenge by replacing the Vanguard rocket, which was supposed to launch a U.S. satellite but was not completed. On its first attempt, on January 31, 1958, the Juno I launcher orbited the first American Explorer 1 satellite. After having carried out a few rockets, Juno I gave way to Juno II, twice as more powerful, which in turn was replaced by Delta and Atlas rockets.

Explorer 1

Explorer 1 (officially Satellite 1958 Alpha) is the first artificial satellite placed in orbit by the United States of America. It was launched on January 31, 1958 by a Juno I rocket from the Cape Canaveral Launch Pad in Florida. The launch of the satellite was initially scheduled as part of the International Geophysical Year. This objective transformed into a national issue when the Soviet Union succeeded in getting ahead of the United States of America by orbiting Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. Different problems delaying the first flight of the U.S. Vanguard rocket (intended to be the first launch vehicle the United States of America would use to place a satellite into orbit) designated for the launch in 1955, Wernher von Braun’s engineers working at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed both a launcher and its satellite in less than ninety days. The main scientific instrument carried by Explorer 1 was designed by James Van Allen and aimed at detecting cosmic radiations. It provided abnormal results, later explained by the presence of radiation belts around Earth, to which were given the scientist’s name.

On December 20, 1957 the first floor of the Jupiter-C launcher arrived at the Cape Canaveral launch pad LC-26 in Florida. Launch Complex 26 (LC-26) consisted of two pads, A and B. Pad A was used for the Jupiter-C and Juno I rockets, and was the launch site for Explorer 1. Pad B was used for Juno II. During the following month, the satellite and the upper floors were assembled and a first repetition of the launch was carried out in January. After deferring for several days take-off due to adverse weather conditions, Juno I took off on January 31, 1958 at 22:48 Eastern Time and placed in orbit Explorer 1, which became the United States of America’s first satellite. Its orbit had a perigee (the point of least distance in the orbit of any satellite of Earth, including the Moon) of three hundred and fifty eight kilometres, an apogee (the point of greatest distance in the orbit of any satellite of Earth, including the Moon) of two thousand five hundred and fifty kilometres, with a period (time it took to complete one full orbit around Earth) of one hundred and fifteen minutes. The total mass of the satellite was fourteen kilograms, including eight kilograms of instrumentation, including batteries.

Explorer 1 was the first of the long-running Explorer program, a United States’ space exploration program that provides flight opportunities for physics, geophysics, heliophysics, and astrophysics investigations from outer space. Launch Pad 26, which was used in its early years to launch ballistic missiles on test flights, and could have been used for a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union if nuclear war had begun, was deactivated in 1963, and was designated for use as a museum in 1964, the Air Force Space and Missile Museum.

Animals in outer space

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For this new Space Law article on Space Legal Issues, let’s have a look at animals in outer space. Throughout the Space Conquest, as with all scientific conquests, humans have always been preceded by animals. Both pioneers of the Space Age and martyrs sacrificed in the name of science, simple stray dogs or gutter cat have entered, despite themselves, into history. It took the dog Laika for the Russian Yuri Gagarin to make his first orbital flight and the monkey Ham for the American Alan Shepard to go in outer space. Let’s have a look at animals in outer space.

On November 3, 1957, the Soviet space dog Laika, on board the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2, became the first living being in the world to penetrate outer space. Bastard dog picked up in the streets of Moscow, like all other animal candidates, Laika’s name came from the Russian word “barking”; this dog was selected for its particularly docile character. For the Soviet leader of the day, Nikita Khrushchev, the goal was to mark the USSR’s superiority over the United States of America, just before the commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution. For scientists, it was also an opportunity to know if a mammal could survive a flight in weightlessness. The launch from Kazakhstan of Sputnik 2 with Laika onboard was a success. Laika made nine full rotations around the Earth before dying. Contrary to the official version that long maintained that a poison was administered after several days and before the return of the capsule in the atmosphere, Laika died of dehydration after only a few hours, due to a malfunction in the regulation system. First martyr of the space conquest, it preceded many animals, insects or bacteria among which dogs, cat, monkeys, geckos or tardigrades. Three years later, in 1960, Sputnik 5 orbited two dogs: Belka and Strelka. But this time, with complete control of the launch and recovery, these dogs returned safely to Earth. Let’s recall through a little bestiary of the space conquest the story of those living beings, and then, we’ll study their legal status.

I. History of animals in outer space

Scorpions, sea urchins, newts, ants, stick insects, beetles, jellyfish, cockroaches, dogs, monkeys, frogs, fish, turtles, flies, mice, and even flying bats. All helped to open the way to outer space for humans. Since the Montgolfier brothers organized in 1783 the first flight of a hot air balloon with a duck, a rooster and a sheep in its basket, animals became true pioneers of the space conquest. The beginning of the Space Animal Conquest was the launch of fruit flies aboard a German V2 rocket, at an altitude of roughly one hundred kilometres, by the United States of America on February 20, 1947. Packed into a container with seeds of corn, the flies were used by the U.S. to test the effects of radiation on DNA in preparation of human space flights. The flies returned to Earth in rude health, opening the doors to more ambitious animal/insect test flights. In 1948, Rhesus macaque Albert I was the first mammal to discover weightlessness in an American rocket. Its trip sent it to an altitude of sixty-three kilometres. Unfortunately, on its way back, the parachute did not work and the capsule crashed to the ground. Although Albert I suffocated during the flight, thereby raising questions about the safety of space travel, its successor, Albert II, met with a more successful fate, returning to Earth unharmed. Marfusha (Little Martha) was the first rabbit launched into space. Along with its sidekicks, the dogs Otvazhnaya (Brave) and Snezhinka (Snowflake), the trio returned from their Soviet-backed suborbital flight in good health in 1959.

On November 3, 1957, Laika, wearing a combination of sensors, left Earth aboard the Soviet capsule Sputnik 2. It was a trip without return, lacking resources at the time to return the satellite intact. This experience was the result of many years of research. Russian scientists had previously tested many dogs, selecting them on two criteria: only female because it took less space to urinate, and bastards, deemed more resourceful and less demanding. Laika died after a few hours, after circling the Earth nine times, because of a malfunction of the thermal regulation system. The satellite turned around Earth until August 14, 1958, until finally entering the atmosphere to burn over the West Indies. In August 1960, the USSR sent a real Noah’s ark: two dogs, a rabbit, forty mice, two rats, fruit flies and plants. This orbital flight was a success because it was the first of which passengers came back alive. One of the dogs, Strelka, gave birth six months after landing and one of its puppies was offered by Nikita Khrushchev to the daughter of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Chosen from forty candidates, the chimpanzee Ham was actually called Chang. It was renamed Ham (after the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center) after the success of the mission, scientists believing that Chang did not sound American enough. It was launched in January 1961, in the Mercury capsule. During a six-minute suborbital flight, the monkey performed several logic tests successfully, proving that animal’s intellectual abilities did not change under spatial conditions. Despite a depressurization of the capsule during the flight, Ham survived its trip, protected by its suit. Its flight defined the trajectory of Alan Shepard and allowed to make many modifications to the rocket and the capsule that ensured the success of the first American sent into outer space. After its trip, Ham ended its days at the North Carolina Zoo, where it died in 1983 at the age of 26.

Enos, brought from the Miami Rare Bird Farm on April 3, 1960, was the second chimpanzee launched into outer space by NASA. It was the first chimpanzee, and third hominid after cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov, to achieve Earth orbit. Enos’ flight aboard Mercury-Atlas 5, after an intensive training at the University of Kentucky and the Holloman Air Force Base, which included psychomotor instruction and aircraft flights, occurred on November 29, 1961. Enos’s flight was a full dress rehearsal for the next Mercury launch on February 20, 1962, which would make John Glenn the first American to orbit Earth, after astronauts Alan Shepard, Jr. and Gus Grissom’s successful suborbital space flights. On November 4, 1962, Enos died of shigellosis-related dysentery, which was resistant to then-known antibiotics. It was constantly observed for two months before its death.

The first guinea pig to enter space was accompanied by a troop of mice and a dog called Chernushka in March 1961 on the Soviet Sputnik 9 spacecraft. The trip was the last in a series of space voyages launched as precursors to manned space travel. The safe recovery of the capsule and its travellers gave the Soviet state the green light to send Gagarin on his voyage into outer space a month later in April 1961. France and the CERMA (Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique), anxious under the Gaullist presidency to stand out from the United States of America and the USSR, after dispatching three rats, Hector, Castor and Pollux, estimated that the improvements made to the Véronique rocket made it possible to carry passengers more substantial than rodents. As a result, in the early 1960s, more than a dozen French cats underwent intensive training for possible space travel, but it was Félicette, or Astrocat as it became known, which made the cut. Recruit training consisted of compression chamber passages, centrifuge towers to determine their resistance to high acceleration, and extended stays in sound boxes where they were subjected to the terrifying crash of take-off. In 1963, the French space agency made it the first feline to travel beyond Earth aboard a Véronique rocket, launched from the Hammaguir base in the Algerian Sahara, reaching an altitude of two hundred kilometres before parachuting back to the ground in its detachable capsule. Returned alive after its exploit, Félicette was nonetheless sacrificed on the altar of science: after being studied for three months, the French cat was euthanized and then dissected.

The first tortoises sent into outer space in 1968 also became the first creatures ever to venture into deep space. Sent by the Soviet Union on a circumlunar trip, the two explorers survived the flight, crashing safely into the Indian Ocean on their return. The tortoises showed that living creatures could complete the lunar voyage unharmed, apart from losing a little weight, with their trip said to have paved the way for future travellers to the Moon. In 1970, NASA launched a spacecraft carrying two bullfrogs to investigate the effects of weightlessness on the otolith, a structure in the inner ear that helps to maintain balance and fend off motion sickness. The six-day mission found that the frogs remained healthy throughout the flight and by the final day had adapted to their environment. Let’s also recall that Arabella and Anita, two American spiders, were sent to weave their web in weightlessness in 1972.

Over three thousand honeybees were sent to space in a cage on board NASA’s Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984, in another test of liveability in zero-G conditions. By the end of the seven-day mission, the bees had acclimatised to the lack of gravity and even made honeycombs in a similar size and shape to their earthly counterparts. In 1991, NASA sent almost two thousand five hundred jellyfish polyps into outer space in a container of artificial seawater to test both their reproductive abilities and the impact of weightless on their physical development. When the experiment ended twenty years later, sixty thousand jellyfish returned to Earth safe and sound. The experiment revealed that humans and jellyfish shared a unique characteristic, the ability to re-orient themselves to local gravitational conditions. With a reputation as one of the hardiest creatures on Earth, it was only a matter of time before cockroaches were sent into space to really prove their resilience. In 2006, four Madagascar hissing cockroaches were packed into a miniature inflatable space hotel and sent up in a Russian rocket. A year later, Nadezhda (Hope), a common Russian cockroach, became the first creature ever to conceive in space, her thirty-three babies hatching on Earth after the twelve-day mission.

Mammals are not the only animals to have had the honour of traveling in outer space. Among these is the tardigrade, a small multicellular animal of about one millimetre, close to arthropods (therefore insects and crustaceans), which lives almost everywhere on the planet. It is an extremophile, able to survive in very hostile environments, extreme temperatures and colossal pressures. In September 2007, a Soyuz rocket sent those organisms into outer space to check what seemed impossible: to resist the two great dangers of outer space which are the void, which boils the internal water, and ultraviolet radiation, which demolishes DNA. Exposed for ten days, to space vacuum and radiation, most of the tardigrades survived, proving not only their ability to enter cryptobiosis, a kind of hibernation allowing them to survive, but also their ability to repair their own DNA. A discovery that intrigued researchers enormously.

In 2014, the odyssey of five geckos (lizards belonging to the infraorder Gekkota) lost in space had caught the attention of the media who thought with amusement revive “Apollo 13 once again but in Cyrillic and with Russian lizards”. Russian scientists had lost control of the Foton-M No.4 satellite in which the geckos were held in order to analyse the effects of microgravity on their fertility and the viability of their eggs. Contact with the satellite was finally restored, and it returned to good orbit before returning to Earth. The geckos had unfortunately not survived, probably due to a failure of equipment controlling the temperature of their container. The gnats sent in the same capsule, however, had withstood the test. They add to the long list of animals, organisms and insects that have had the joys of discovering the delights of weightlessness, such as sea urchins, spiders, turtles, stick insects or frogs.

Still in 2014, Japanese scientists conducted in vitro fertilization with mouse sperm stored for nine months aboard the International Space Station (ISS): the birth of seventy-three healthy young mice gave confidence to the scientists who explained that those results could have important implications for future human settlements in outer space.

II. Animals in outer space: their legal status

Animals go into space to help conduct scientific research only when absolutely necessary. Researchers prefer to research with computer models, or by involving the astronauts directly. In the earlier days of space exploration, nobody knew if people could survive a trip away from Earth, so using animals was the best way to find out.

A) Sentient commodities

“Animals that travel in space are cared for ethically and humanely”, Laura Lewis, a member of NASA Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, says. “The Institutional Animal Care and Use Community looks at the most humane alternatives for taking animals into space”, she said. “Regulations for animal research are more intense than for using people in research because people can give consent. Animals can’t object, so people need to work on their behalf. Animal housing rules are more extensive than the requirements for human children day care centres. NASA facilities that house animals for research are accredited by an organization that requires proof that animals are cared for in a facility that meets those standards”. “The United States Department of Agriculture Animal Welfare Act and the Public Health Services Policy Act protect research animals and set minimum standards”.

Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. The standards of good animal welfare vary considerably between different contexts. These standards are under constant review and are debated, created and revised by animal welfare groups, legislators and academics worldwide. The European Commission’s activities in this area start with the recognition that animals are sentient beings. The general aim is to ensure that animals do not endure avoidable pain or suffering, and obliges the owner/keeper of animals to respect minimum welfare requirements. European Union legislation regarding farm animal welfare is regularly re-drafted according to science-based evidence and cultural views. In the US, every institution that uses vertebrate animals for federally funded laboratory research must have an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). Each local IACUC reviews research protocols and conducts evaluations of the institution’s animal care and use which includes the results of inspections of facilities that are required by law. The IACUC committee, important in applying laws about animal research in the United States of America, must assess the steps taken to “enhance animal well-being” before research can take place. This includes research on farm animals. According to the National Institutes of Health Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, researchers must try to minimize distress in animals whenever possible: “Animals used in research and testing may experience pain from induced diseases, procedures, and toxicity”. The Public Health Service (PHS) Policy and Animal Welfare Regulations (AWRs) state that procedures that cause more than momentary or slight pain or distress should be performed with appropriate sedation, analgesia, or anaesthesia. The Animal Welfare Act is the only U.S. federal law that covers animals in research. Enacted in 1966, it regulates the care and use of animals in research, testing, teaching, exhibition, transport, and by dealers.

B) Astronauts or space objects? The case of animals in outer space

An astronaut could be described as a person who travels beyond Earth’s atmosphere, or a trainee for spaceflight. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an astronaut is “a person who has been trained for travelling in space”. It is interesting to notice that, without going into details about the different terms used to refer to any person flying in a space object, there are already differences on the conception of the term astronaut. It can either be someone traveling beyond Earth’s atmosphere or someone training to travel beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Considering the fact that the frontier between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space is still subject to debate, what could be the term used to refer to someone flying on suborbital flights? Could we call any human flying on a space object an astronaut? We would therefore need to define, what some national space laws already do, at an international level, what is a space object. The status of astronauts is enounced and organised both in the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (entered into force on October 10, 1967) and the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (entered into force on December 3, 1968).

Even though (when analysing animals in outer space) we could consider that, according to Article V of the Outer Space Treaty (1967), which states that “In carrying on activities in outer space and on celestial bodies, the astronauts of one State Party shall render all possible assistance to the astronauts of other States Parties”, some animals or insects could “carry an activity in outer space”, it is highly debatable that, even though there are no official definition of an astronaut, those creatures could be called “astronauts”. There is an ethical interrogation about their status of “envoys of mankind” considering the fact that those animals, insects and bacteria are living beings. We could consider, for example with the 1968′ tortoises becoming the first creatures ever to venture into deep space, as with the Voyager program, an American scientific program that employs two robotic probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, to study the outer Solar System, that those tortoises were sent in an attempt to venture into deep space and represent humanity, like diplomats of life on Earth.

The commodity status of animals, when speaking about animals in outer space, refers to the legal status as property of most non-human animals. Animals regarded as commodities may be bought, sold, given away, bequeathed, killed, and used as commodity producers: producers of meat, eggs, milk, fur, wool, skin and offspring, among other things. Basically, most animals are considered commodities or sentient commodities. There are no international regulations about research animals’ legal status. Most of the legislations throughout the world, especially Western ones, consider animals (nothing is usually specified about insects, which could by analogy be qualified as animals) as commodities, tangible items that may be bought or sold; things produced for commerce. The Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (1972) talks about Space Objects and so is the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (1972) which specifies in its Article I (b) that “The term space object includes component parts of a space object as well as its launch vehicle and parts thereof”. As a result, considering the fact that those living beings are part of missions and cannot be considered astronauts, because they can be considered parts of their spacecraft or module (ISS), they can therefore be called space objects as it is enounced in the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (1972) which specifies in its Article I (b) that “The term space object includes component parts of a space object as well as its launch vehicle and parts thereof”. That is what we can say about animals in outer space.

The legal status of astronauts

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In this article on the legal status of astronauts, let’s summarise the international legal regime applicable to persons transported in outer space.

I. Qualification of persons transported in space – The legal status of astronauts

A) The right words

An astronaut could be described as a person who travels beyond Earth’s atmosphere, or a trainee for spaceflight. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an astronaut is “a person who has been trained for travelling in space”. It is interesting to notice that, without going into details about the different terms used to refer to any person flying in a space object, there are already differences on the conception of the term astronaut. It can either be someone traveling beyond Earth’s atmosphere or someone training to travel beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Considering the fact that the frontier between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space is still subject to debate, what could be the term used to refer to someone flying on suborbital flights? Could we call any human flying on a space object an astronaut? We would therefore need to define, what some national space laws already do, at an international level, what is a space object.

When talking about the legal status of astronauts, according to which country the person flying/travelling to outer space or training to do so is, terms change. This originality of language, even though we are today witnessing a terminological neutralization echoing the international relationships’ gradual smoothing, especially between the United States of America and former URSS, illustrates the highly geopolitical, spatiopolitical and historical aspects of space conquest. Let’s not forget that Space Age started during the International Geophysical Year not as any scientific project but as a demonstration of strength by the superpowers of the time, and soon after continued as a military project (US military space’s budget is today still at least twice that of the civilian budget). Depending upon which space object or spacecraft the person will fly/travel on, different names will be used. The United States of America use the term astronaut. Former URSS and today’s Russia use the term cosmonaut. Europe uses the term spationaut. China uses the term taikonaut. India uses the term vyomanaut. Some African artists and politics have used the term afronaut. Some private companies have proposed the term touronaut to define a space tourist. After the flights of Valentina Tereshkova (URSS), Sally Ride (United States of America) or Claudie Haigneré (France), the terms cosmonette, astronette and spationette were proposed. We sometimes also find the words robonaut, moonnaut or lunanaut/lunarnaut, and bionaut (those working in the American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona).

B) Legal qualification

The status of astronauts is enounced and organised both in the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (entered into force on October 10, 1967) and the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (entered into force on December 3, 1968).

Article V of the Outer Space Treaty states that “States Parties to the Treaty shall regard astronauts as envoys of mankind in outer space and shall render to them all possible assistance in the event of accident, distress, or emergency landing on the territory of another State Party or on the high seas. When astronauts make such a landing, they shall be safely and promptly returned to the State of registry of their space vehicle. In carrying on activities in outer space and on celestial bodies, the astronauts of one State Party shall render all possible assistance to the astronauts of other States Parties. States Parties to the Treaty shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the Treaty or the Secretary-General of the United Nations of any phenomena they discover in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, which could constitute a danger to the life or health of astronauts”.

In this article from the Magna Carta of space, different elements appear. The first one is the ethical notion of envoys of mankind in outer space. It means that in outer space, even though there is still a need to define where it starts from, astronauts are seen as representatives of humanity. It doesn’t mean that they will change or lose their nationality but simply that their actions are undertaken in the name of mankind. Given the fact that the Outer Space Treaty (1967) was signed during the Cold War, this notion of mankind is crucial; States and the UN have wanted to sacralise outer space and make it a supranational environment. As the traditional law of the sea requires it, astronauts must be helped, rescued or assisted, regardless of the international situation, their nationality or origin. As we explained earlier, astronauts depend on the State of registry of their space vehicle; let’s imagine that in a case of emergency, as seen in the 2013′ movie Gravity (where astronaut Ryan Stone is brought back on Earth via a Chinese Shenzou), the person would be returned to the State of registry of his/her space vehicle with which he/her travelled beyond Earth’s atmosphere or started his/her mission. Astronauts have also a duty to assist other astronauts. Finally, there is an international duty of supervision by observation according to which “States Parties to the Treaty shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the Treaty or the Secretary-General of the United Nations of any phenomena they discover in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, which could constitute a danger to the life or health of astronauts”.

The Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (1968) came to complement the dispositions of the Outer Space Treaty’s Article V and states, Article 1, that “Each Contracting Party which receives information or discovers that the personnel of a spacecraft have suffered accident or are experiencing conditions of distress or have made an emergency or unintended landing in territory under its jurisdiction or on the high seas or in any other place not under the jurisdiction of any State shall immediately: (a) Notify the launching authority or, if it cannot identify and immediately communicate with the launching authority, immediately make a public announcement by all appropriate means of communication at its disposal; (b) Notify the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who should disseminate the information without delay by all appropriate means of communication at his disposal”.

Article 3 enounces that “If information is received or it is discovered that the personnel of a spacecraft have alighted on the high seas or in any other place not under the jurisdiction of any State, those Contracting Parties which are in a position to do so shall, if necessary, extend assistance in search and rescue operations for such personnel to assure their speedy rescue. They shall inform the launching authority and the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the steps they are taking and of their progress”. This article talks about extending assistance, which is an interesting concept. The following articles treat about space objects and technical details.

Article 10 of the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (1979) enounces that “States Parties shall adopt all practicable measures to safeguard the life and health of persons on the Moon. For this purpose they shall regard any person on the Moon as an astronaut within the meaning of article V of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies and as part of the personnel of a spacecraft within the meaning of the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space. States Parties shall offer shelter in their stations, installations, vehicles and other facilities to persons in distress on the Moon”.

Article 11 of the SPACE STATION – Agreement between the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and OTHER GOVERNMENTS signed at Washington January 29, 1998 (on which we will soon come back in a new article), states that “Each Partner has the right to provide qualified personnel to serve on an equitable basis as Space Station crew members. Selections and decisions regarding the flight assignments of a Partner’s crew members shall be made in accordance with procedures provided in the MOUs and implementing arrangements. The Code of Conduct for the Space Station crew will be developed and approved by all the Partners in accordance with the individual Partner’s internal procedures, and in accordance with the MOUs, A Partner must have approved the Code of Conduct before it provides Space Station crew. Each Partner, in exercising its right to provide crew, shall ensure that its crew members observe the Code of Conduct”.

C) Ethical qualification

The Outer Space Treaty (1967) really gives an ethical dimension to space exploration. It’s the first time that are used the terms “envoys of mankind”. Article V of the OST requires astronauts to be regarded as envoys of mankind. In this respect, doctrine has stated that mission they (astronauts) perform and the risks they incur justify the special standing and legal protection afforded to them. Yet, rather than attaching jurisdictional immunities for astronauts, there is a historical consensus that the term was only intended as a figure of speech. The final space law instrument to be adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, attempted to clarify the status of all persons in outer space. Under article 10 is specified that any person on the Moon is considered to be an astronaut.

II. Space tourism and the legal status of astronauts

International Space Law has today to face new issues, as a result of technological and political advances, especially that of commercial (as in non-scientific) activities, like Space Tourism. Are space tourists or touronauts envoys of mankind? With the recent flights of Virgin Galactic, the projects of companies such as Blue Origin or SpaceX, how is Space Law going to define those tourists or pilots flying those aerospace objects or sometimes space objects? Space tourism is space travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. While these capabilities have yet to come on line, some providers are selling slots in advance to individuals who wish to experience sub-orbital flight.  As part of their marketing, these providers tout their customers as future astronauts. But the international legal regime of space law may not recognize space tourists as astronauts. From the point of view of international law, astronauts/cosmonauts are people who carry out professional activities connected with the exploration and use of outer space itself and on celestial bodies, in accordance with the rules and principles of international law. An astronaut has to therefore be a person + carrying out professional activities connected with the exploration and use of outer space or on a celestial body + performing those activities in accordance with the rules and principles of international law. These conditions are cumulative and not alternative. When one of the three conditions is missing, we can’t talk about an astronaut.

Another definition for astronaut, when analysing the legal status of astronauts, could be the following; for the legal status of astronaut to apply the person must be in an object located in space + conducting their activities for the benefit and in the interests of all countries + regarded as an envoy of mankind in outer space. These conditions are again cumulative and not alternative. Article 10 of the Moon Treaty (1979) opens up the definition of an astronaut by simply enouncing that any person on the Moon should be regarded as an astronaut. This means that any company installed on the Moon could claim an astronaut status and the rights attached to it. By analogy, any person in outer space, inside or outside any spacecraft or space object, could be considered as an astronaut.

However, the Space Nations have for the time-being rejected the Moon Treaty. Therefore, commercial actors under the jurisdiction of these nations could not benefit from this provision and the subsequent elevation to the legal status of astronaut. Conversely, commercial actors under the jurisdiction of a State that has ratified or acceded to the Moon Treaty could meet the third condition in this test.  Moreover, given the other provisions of the Moon Treaty, these commercial actors could also meet the second condition of this test and enjoy elevation to the legal status of astronaut.

As a conclusion on the legal status of astronauts, it is important to understand that the legal status of astronaut is to evolve under the acceleration of outer space’s privatisation. In this New Space era, let us be able to propose an ever more up-to-date and precise Space Law in order to guarantee access to outer space to the greatest number of people and thus, our capacity to make outer space a new environment full of new perspectives. That is what we can say about the legal status of astronauts.

The legal status of Antarctica

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Let’s have a look at the legal status of Antarctica. There are many legal similarities between the status of Antarctica and that of the Moon. For this article, let’s focus on a general presentation of Antarctica’s legal status. Antarctica is Earth’s southernmost continent. It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At fourteen millions square kilometres, it is the fifth-largest continent. About ninety-eight percent of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages two kilometres in thickness, which extends to all but the northernmost reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Continent of all the extremes, its geographical isolation and the difficult living conditions which prevail there make it an area which arouses many desires and fantasies on the part of scientists and adventurers in search of mysteries to break through. Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Most of Antarctica is a polar desert and its temperature has reached minus ninety degrees Celsius. Anywhere from one thousand to five thousand people reside throughout the year at research stations scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, and certain animals, such as mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra.

Although myths and speculation about a Terra Australis (Latin for “South Land”, it was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries) date back to antiquity, Antarctica is noted as the last region on Earth in recorded history to be discovered, unseen until 1820 when the Russian expedition of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev on Vostok (a sloop-of-war or “warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns” of the Imperial Russian Navy, the lead ship of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition) and Mirny (the second ship of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition) sighted the Fimbul ice shelf (an ice shelf about two hundred kilometres long and one hundred kilometres wide, nourished by Jutulstraumen Glacier, bordering the coast of Queen Maud Land). The continent, however, remained largely neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of easily accessible resources, and isolation. In 1895, the first confirmed landing was conducted by a team of Norwegians. An expedition led by Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen from the ship Fram became the first to reach the geographic South Pole on December 14, 1911, using a route from the Bay of Whales and up the Axel Heiberg Glacier. One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition, the British Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott, reached the pole.

Antarctica is a de facto condominium, governed by parties to the Antarctic Treaty System that have consulting status. Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, and many more have signed it since then. The treaty prohibits military activities and mineral mining, nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal, it supports scientific research and protects the continent’s ecozone. Ongoing experiments are today conducted by more than four thousand scientists from many nations. Antarctica may actually not be this gigantic space of freedom where everyone does what he likes. It is also not a space reserved for scientists, nor an international space that would escape the land claims. In fact, the impulses are great for the control of the region, several countries exerting forms of dominations on certain slices of this South Pole: Argentina, Chile, and Australia (the bordering countries), but also France, Norway, and Russia. What are the rules that govern them? What laws are there? Who owns Antarctica?

A condominium

In international law, a condominium (plural either condominia, as in Latin, or condominiums) is a political territory (state or border area) in or over which multiple sovereign powers formally agree to share equal dominium (in the sense of sovereignty) and exercise their rights jointly, without dividing it into national zones. Although a condominium, coined in the eighteen century from Latin com- together + dominium right of ownership, has always been recognised as a theoretical possibility, condominia have been rare in practice. A major problem, and the reason so few have existed, is the difficulty of ensuring co-operation between the sovereign powers; once the understanding fails, the status is likely to become untenable. Antarctica is a de facto condominium, governed by parties to the Antarctic Treaty System that have consulting status. The International Space Station is a de facto space condominium, via a program of complex set of legal, political and financial agreements between all parties.

The International Geophysical Year (AGI)

The International Geophysical Year (AGI) was a globally coordinated research project conducted between July 1957 and December 1958. The third edition of the International Polar Year was characterised by the massive use of technologies inherited from the Second World War and reinvested in the scientific field, starting with the radar. Many expeditions to Antarctica were placed under the voluntary coordination of seventy countries in the midst of the Cold War. This IGY impelled the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 (Article II of which provides for freedom of scientific research and cooperation in Antarctica, as practiced during the International Geophysical Year) as well as the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (also known as the Madrid Protocol) in 1991; as a result emerged different principles such as the principle of freezing territorial claims, the principle of non-militarization and non-nuclearization or the principle of freedom of scientific research.

Antarctica’s legal status

There are many links, when studying the legal status of Antarctica, between Antarctica and outer space, such as the prohibition of military activities or the prohibition of mining the continent. High seas or Antarctica are important when reasoning about space activities; not surprisingly, the US Space Agency (NASA) has decided to occupy this place to test the equipment that will be used in future missions to the planet Mars. The geographical and climatic particularism of Antarctica have given rise to specific problems in international law: sovereignty, jurisdiction, the administration of people and resources. The national responses to these problems gave birth in 1959, with the signing of the Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), to a form of collective administration. With the emergence of new problems related to the protection of the environment and the conservation and exploitation of biological and mineral resources, the consultation mechanisms put in place by the Treaty have given rise to important legal and institutional developments. All these mechanisms and developments, animated by their own dynamics, have been described as the Antarctic System by comparison and opposition to the UN system or other regional systems of law.

I. The Antarctic Treaty System – The legal status of Antarctica

The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, Earth’s only continent without a native human population. For the purposes of the treaty system, Antarctica is defined as all of the land and ice shelves south of sixtieth parallel south, a circle of latitude that is sixty degrees south of the Earth’s equatorial plane. The treaty entered into force in 1961 and currently has more than fifty Parties. The treaty sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, establishes freedom of scientific investigation, and bans military activity on the continent; the treaty also established the first arms control agreement during the Cold War. The original signatories were the twelve countries active in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year (IGY).

Antarctica currently has no permanent population and therefore has no citizenship nor government. All personnel present on Antarctica at any time are citizens or nationals of some sovereignty outside Antarctica, as there is no Antarctic sovereignty. The majority of Antarctica is claimed by one or more countries, but most countries do not explicitly recognize those claims. The area on the mainland between ninety degrees west and one hundred and fifty degrees west is the only major land on Earth not claimed by any country.

Article I of the Antarctic Treaty (about the legal status of Antarctica) states that “Antarctica shall be used for peaceful purposes only. There shall be prohibited, inter alia, any measures of a military nature, such as the establishment of military bases and fortifications, the carrying out of military manoeuvres, as well as the testing of any type of weapons. The present Treaty shall not prevent the use of military personnel or equipment for scientific research or for any other peaceful purpose”. Its Article II enounces that “Freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica and cooperation toward that end, as applied during the International Geophysical Year, shall continue, subject to the provisions of the present Treaty”. Article III is about the free exchange of information and personnel in co-operation with the United Nations and other international agencies.

Article IV declares that “Nothing contained in the present Treaty shall be interpreted as: a renunciation by any Contracting Party of previously asserted rights of or claims to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica; a renunciation or diminution by any Contracting Party of any basis of claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica which it may have whether as a result of its activities or those of its nationals in Antarctica, or otherwise; prejudicing the position of any Contracting Party as regards its recognition or non-recognition of any other State’s right of or claim or basis of claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica. No acts or activities taking place while the present Treaty is in force shall constitute a basis for asserting, supporting or denying a claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica or create any rights of sovereignty in Antarctica. No new claim, or enlargement of an existing claim, to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica shall be asserted while the present Treaty is in force”.

Article V express that “Any nuclear explosions in Antarctica and the disposal there of radioactive waste material shall be prohibited. In the event of the conclusion of international agreements concerning the use of nuclear energy, including nuclear explosions and the disposal of radioactive waste material, to which all of the Contracting Parties whose representatives are entitled to participate in the meetings provided for under Article IX are parties, the rules established under such agreements shall apply in Antarctica”. Article VII exposes that Treaty-state observers have free access, including aerial observation, to any area and may inspect all stations, installations, and equipment; advance notice of all activities and of the introduction of military personnel must be given.

Article VIII specifies that “In order to facilitate the exercise of their functions under the present Treaty, and without prejudice to the respective positions of the Contracting Parties relating to jurisdiction over all other persons in Antarctica, observers designated under paragraph 1 of Article VII and scientific personnel exchanged under subparagraph 1 (b) of Article III of the Treaty, and members of the staffs accompanying any such persons, shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Contracting Party of which they are nationals in respect of all acts or omissions occurring while they are in Antarctica for the purpose of exercising their functions. Without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article, and pending the adoption of measures in pursuance of subparagraph 1 (e) of Article IX, the Contracting Parties concerned in any case of dispute with regard to the exercise of jurisdiction in Antarctica shall immediately consult together with a view to reaching a mutually acceptable solution”.

Article XI states that “If any dispute arises between two or more of the Contracting Parties concerning the interpretation or application of the present Treaty, those Contracting Parties shall consult among themselves with a view to having the dispute resolved by negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement or other peaceful means of their own choice. Any dispute of this character not so resolved shall, with the consent, in each case, of all parties to the dispute, be referred to the International Court of Justice for settlement; but failure to reach agreement on reference to the International Court shall not absolve parties to the dispute from the responsibility of continuing to seek to resolve it by any of the various peaceful means referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article”.

Those articles illustrate Antarctica’s protected status. It is interesting to understand that those rules elaborated during the Cold War influenced Space Laws, especially the Outer Space Treaty (1967) and the Moon Agreement (1979).

II. Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty – The legal status of Antarctica

Since 1991, Antarctica has been a nature reserve dedicated to peace and science. Its fragile environment is subject to a single legal regime based on the best scientific knowledge. The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, also known as the Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, or the Madrid Protocol, provides a framework for activities to limit their negative impacts on the environment and dependent and associated ecosystems. The preservation of the intrinsic value of Antarctica is ensured by the prior and mandatory completion of an impact study. This approach is complemented by the strengthening of protection measures on Antarctic Spaces and Species. Also, the continent and the Southern Ocean benefit from the best protection regime in the world. However, the twenty-first century poses significant challenges: the steady increase in the number of activities in Antarctica, the presence of persistent organic pollutants, the pursuit of fishing activities on a scarce resource, bioprospecting, the introduction of Exogenous species, the growth of tourism and the imminent risk of a maritime accident are all issues that must be addressed by the Parties to the Treaty. Will the anticipatory management approach and cooperation preserve Antarctica for the benefit of humanity?

The Madrid Protocol is part of the Antarctic Treaty System. It provides for comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems. It was concluded in Madrid and opened for signature on October 4, 1991 and entered into force on January 14, 1998. The treaty will be open for review in 2048. Its Article 2 states that “The Parties commit themselves to the comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems and hereby designate Antarctica as a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science”. Article 3 edicts ENVIRONMENTAL PRINCIPLES, among which the fact that “Activities shall be planned and conducted in the Antarctic Treaty area so as to accord priority to scientific research and to preserve the value of Antarctica as an area for the conduct of such research, including research essential to understanding the global environment”.

It’s interesting to notice that, when speaking about the legal status of Antarctica, both the Antarctic Treaty System and the Madrid Protocol edict space-like laws. Let’s add that the evolution of the Law of the Sea, which resulted in the adoption of the Montego Bay Convention (1982), profoundly affected the system of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. By increasing the powers of the coastal State, the Montego Bay Convention has led to an extension of the powers of the consultative parties on the marine areas adjacent to the southern continent so as to take into account the positions of the claiming states. But at the same time, the emergence of the concept of a common heritage of humankind, as reflected in the Montego Bay Convention, allowed third states to launch an offensive within the United Nations to challenge the Treaty and the exclusive management of the region by Consultative Parties.

The magnitude of this offensive has highlighted the weaknesses of the Antarctic Treaty System (and the legal status of Antarctica) with respect to the sovereignty and difficulty of a collective approach to jurisdiction over the marine areas adjacent to the continent. Paradoxically, however, this questioning of the Treaty System has led to a strengthening of the latter by the abandonment of the Wellington Convention on Mineral Resources and the adoption by the Consultative Parties of a protocol establishing very strict mechanisms for the protection of mineral resources and banishing mining activities. The Law of the Sea has thus been both a factor in the development of the Antarctic Treaty System and a factor in redefining the objectives of the consultative parties. That is what we can say about the legal status of Antarctica.

International liability for damage caused by space objects

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Let’s study, for this new Space Law article on Space Legal Issues, the international liability for damage caused by space objects. Public international law refers to those laws, rules, and principles of general application that deal with the conduct of nation states and international organisations among themselves as well as the relationships between nation states and international organisations with natural and juridical persons. The public international law aims to monitor the behaviour between states since where there exists a community of states, the maintaining of law and order becomes essential. Primary forum for the creation of public international law is inter-governmental organisations like the United Nations; through the codification of customary law by way of international treaties, the UN develops, creates and enforces international law in many levels.

Liability could be described as “a comprehensive legal term that describes the condition of being actually or potentially subject to a legal obligation”. One of the most significant words in the field of law, liability means legal responsibility for one’s acts or omissions. Failure of a person or entity to meet that responsibility leaves him/her/it open to a lawsuit for any resulting damages or a court order to perform (as in a breach of contract or violation of statute). In order to win a lawsuit, the suing party (plaintiff) must prove the legal liability of the defendant if the plaintiff’s allegations are shown to be true. This requires evidence of the duty to act, the failure to fulfil that duty, and the connection (proximate cause) of that failure to some injury or harm to the plaintiff. Liability also applies to alleged criminal acts in which the defendant may be responsible for his/her acts which constitute a crime, thus making him/her subject to conviction and punishment.

State Responsibility and International Liability under International Law

It is interesting to study the both aspects of what is traditionally called liability under the prism of International Law; those are State Responsibility and International Liability for Injurious Consequences Arising out of Acts Not Prohibited by International Law. Both topics deal with the obligations and duties incumbent upon States under international law. Differentiating between State responsibility and international liability of a State is conceptually difficult. Even though an act of a State may not be wrongful by virtue of consent, force majeure or fortuitous event, distress, or necessity, the absence of a wrongful act does not prejudge the question of compensation for damage caused by that act. The State may engage its international liability and compensate for damage caused by its act, regardless of the existence of a wrongful act. In more ways than one, a State’s international liability constitutes proof of injurious consequences independent of a wrongful act attributable to that State.

Two precepts may be drawn from the examination of the origins and historical developments of State responsibility and international liability. First, State responsibility constitutes a comprehensive part of international law. It embraces all aspects of obligations incumbent upon States vis-à-vis’ other States, whether voluntarily contracted or imposed by custom, including the general principle that an internationally wrongful act engaging State responsibility has international legal consequences. Second, international liability is predicated on a set of primary rules concerning the primary obligations of States. Thus, the breach of a primary obligation under international liability inevitably sets in motion the secondary rules prescribed under State responsibility. The obligation not to cause harm to others, or its broader version, the obligation to prevent harmful effects to others, would be a primary rule of international liability, a breach of which engages State responsibility.

Linguistic deficiency in non-English languages to differentiate between responsibility and liability further compounds the difficulty in distinguishing between State responsibility and States’ international liability. Civil law vocabularies express the notion of liability in terms of responsibility or civil responsibility. Thus, State responsibility refers to a State’s responsibility under international law in general, whereas international liability denotes a State’s civil responsibility, or obligation to pay compensation or make reparations for injuries that non-nationals suffer outside its national boundaries as a result of activities within its territory or under its control. A State’s international liability is engaged not only under international law, but also within the national dimension of municipal legal systems in circumstances involving transnational relations. It is important to understand the relation between State responsibility under international law and international liability of States for injurious consequences that arise out of activities within their jurisdiction or control and that affect other States or nationals of other States.

Under international liability, international conventions and multilateral treaties have created specialized regimes of implementation of secondary rights and obligations in several areas. Despite the presupposition of primary rules and primary obligations in State responsibility, the rules and obligations elaborated under international liability constitute the same precise primary rules and obligations. Under State responsibility, the breach of primary rules and obligations results in the application of secondary rules in State responsibility. On the other hand, under international liability, a breach will generate secondary obligations that must be fulfilled under the law of State responsibility.

Space objects

The term Object in reference to outer space was first used in 1961 in General Assembly Resolution 1721 (XVI) titled International cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space to describe any object launched by States into outer space. Professor Bin Cheng, a world authority on International Air and Space Law, has noted that members of the COPUOS during negotiations over the space treaties treated spacecraft and space vehicles as synonymous terms. The Space Object can be considered as the conventional launcher, the reusable launcher, the satellite, the orbital station, the probe, the impactor, the space telescope… The five UN treaties talk about Space Objects. Article X of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (1967) states that “In order to promote international cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, in conformity with the purposes of this Treaty, the States Parties to the Treaty shall consider on a basis of equality any requests by other States Parties to the Treaty to be afforded an opportunity to observe the flight of space objects launched by those States”. Also, under the Outer Space Treaty, Space Object implicates liability, registration, and a prohibition on the placement of weapons of mass destruction into outer space.

The Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (1968), especially its Article 5, talks about Objects Launched into Outer Space. Under the Rescue and Return Agreement, we should also note that the term defines whether a State can request or send back a Space Object found in its territory, as well as the extent to which a State may be compensated for the effort. The Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (1972) talks about Space Objects and so is the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (1972) which specifies in its Article I (b) that “The term space object includes component parts of a space object as well as its launch vehicle and parts thereof”. Under the Liability Convention, we notice that Space Object defines the extent to which a State can apply a theory of liability in seeking compensation or restitution for damage caused to other objects in outer space, on the surface of the Earth, or aircraft in flight. Under the Registration Convention, a State party must register its Space Objects in order to assign nationality to a Space Object. Finally, Article 3 2. of the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (1984) states that “Any threat or use of force or any other hostile act or threat of hostile act on the Moon is prohibited. It is likewise prohibited to use the Moon in order to commit any such act or to engage in any such threat in relation to the Earth, the Moon, spacecraft, the personnel of spacecraft or man-made space objects”.

Hence the fact that a Space Object causing damage triggers international liability under the 1972 Liability Convention, that a Space Object requires registration by the 1975 Registration Convention, and that a Space Object effectively triggers application of much of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty & the 1968 Rescue Agreement, none of the Five Space Law Conventions define precisely what a Space Object is (and Space Object represent specific meanings under different treaties).

According to the COPUOS (Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Legal Subcommittee, Fifty-seventh session, Vienna, April 2018, on The definition and delimitation of outer space, Suborbital flights and the delimitation of air space vis-à-vis outer space: functionalism, spatialism and state sovereignty, A Submission by the Space Safety Law & Regulation Committee of the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety), a spacecraft should be capable of moving in outer space (either orbital or suborbital) without any support from the air, and should have a power source not dependent upon external oxygen. Professor Bin Cheng describes a Space Object as a man-made object that is launched or is intended to be launched into outer space. Several States have redefined Space Object in their national law using terms of art and/or through licensing and registration regimes under national law (Austria, Belgium, China, Spain, etc.). What is called “the functionalist approach” – concerning the definition of a Space Object – takes as reference point the functions or activities of the vehicles. In order to answer the question “Is it a space craft or an aircraft?” one would ask: “Do the vehicle’s functions resemble to those of an aircraft or of a spacecraft?” Functionalists believe that a suborbital vehicle should be classified as an aircraft when the purpose that it fulfils is inherent to aviation activities, while it is deemed to be a spacecraft when it serves space-related purposes.

The functionalist theory shares common grounds with what is called “the spatialist approach” (based on the environment where the activity is taking place); it examines whether the collision risks of the vehicles are higher among aircraft or space craft according to the location within which the vehicle operates. Another theory, which is closely linked to the spatialist approach, is “the aerodynamic-lift theory”. It proposes the demarcation between air space and outer space at eighty-three kilometres above the surface of the Earth (or in general between eighty and ninety kilometres), as this is the point after which the aircraft functions cannot be maintained, for the density of the atmosphere is not sufficient to support vehicles that have not achieved circular velocity (the air lift is virtually nil at that altitude). We can say that what can’t be considered an aircraft is a spacecraft. Space object can be described as any object launched into orbit from Earth, the Moon or other celestial bodies to travel to, in or through outer space, all artificial objects likely to find or evolve in outer space without the bearing strength of the air. A notional innovation came along with the Aerospace Object.

Liability for damage caused by space objects

When damage is caused by a space object in outer space, typically through a collision with another space object, international space law’s Liability Convention provides a mechanism for compensation for the injured state. Among other requirements, the Convention requires proof of state fault in order for liability to arise, but it does not define this notoriously ambiguous term, nor does it establish a standard of care for those conducting outer space activities. The Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (entered into force on September 1, 1972) is unique in international law being the only fault-based liability regime.

In the space field, given the very specific nature of the activities, the question of responsibility necessarily takes on a singular aspect compared to the classic rules, either by a reinforcement of the responsibility, or by the erasure of the responsibility. When space activities came into being, they were subject to the general responsibility of Public International Law without any special procedure. Since 1962, COPUOS had been discussing to elaborate a special convention. It was adopted and opened for signature on March 29, 1972 and has entered into force the same year. Thus the Convention does not define what a space object is, neither does it establish a liability regime for all space activities, which are then subject to the general international law of liability.

I. Where it applies

Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty (1967) states that “States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty. When activities are carried on in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, by an international organization, responsibility for compliance with this Treaty shall be borne both by the international organization and by the States Parties to the Treaty participating in such organization”.

Article VII of the same Treaty affirms that “Each State Party to the Treaty that launches or procures the launching of an object into outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and each State Party from whose territory or facility an object is launched, is internationally liable for damage to another State Party to the Treaty or to its natural or juridical persons by such object or its component parts on the Earth, in air space or in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies”.

The terms liability and responsibility have distinct meanings legal English. To be liable for something means to be legally responsible for something; liability is a legal obligation. Responsibility refers to the care and consideration a person has for the outcome of their actions. It can also refer to a person’s accountability for an outcome to which their actions have contributed, together with any legal obligation they may have to repair any damage caused.

Article II of the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects enounce that “A launching State shall be absolutely liable to pay compensation for damage caused by its space object on the surface of the Earth or to aircraft in flight”. The following article relates that “In the event of damage being caused elsewhere than on the surface of the Earth to a space object of one launching State or to persons or property on board such a space object by a space object of another launching State, the latter shall be liable only if the damage is due to its fault or the fault of persons for whom it is responsible”.

II. Settlement procedures

It’s the classical principle of diplomatic protection: international responsibility is discussed only between States. Only one State can claim compensation, either for itself or on behalf of physical or legal persons who possess its nationality. The principle has been broadened since, in the event of failure to do so: a State in whose territory damage has been suffered may also present the claim to the launching State the request has to be sent within one year). Article XII of the Convention states that “The compensation which the launching State shall be liable to pay for damage under this Convention shall be determined in accordance with international law and the principles of justice and equity, in order to provide such reparation in respect of the damage as will restore the person, natural or juridical, State or international organization on whose behalf the claim is presented to the condition which would have existed if the damage had not occurred”.

Article XVIII and XIX of the same Convention enounce that “The Claims Commission shall decide the merits of the claim for compensation and determine the amount of compensation payable, if any” and that “The Commission shall give its decision or award as promptly as possible and no later than one year from the date of its establishment, unless an extension of this period is found necessary by the Commission”.

In the Convention, references to States also concern international intergovernmental organizations that engage in space activities and have accepted the convention: the States parties to the organization of the latter are jointly and severally liable. The arbitral procedure has never really worked: very little damage were caused by space objects (except in 1969, several sailors of a Japanese freighter were injured by the debris of a Soviet spacecraft, we can also mention Kosmos 954 or Kosmos 2251), and States want to remain discreet and avoid creating any precedent on the basis of the different space treaties.

From the beginning of the Space Age, speaking about the international liability for damage caused by space objects, the different participants have renounced to make recourse against each other. States have agreed on cross-waiver of liability: a cross-waiver is a set of promises made by parties to an agreement in which each of the parties pledges not to sue the other for damages caused by the other, except under specific circumstances. The use of these clauses have the consequence that in case of a damage, everyone will bear the consequences. Parties that participate in a system may even include a clause in which they reject any liability to third parties and claim to cooperate to protect against claims for compensation. That is what we can say about the international liability for damage caused by space objects.

A national space law in Portugal

space law,

A national space law in Portugal has recently been adopted. Let’s have a look at it. Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country located mostly on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost sovereign state of mainland Europe. It is bordered to the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and east by Spain. Its territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both autonomous regions with their own regional governments. Portugal is a member of the European Space Agency (ESA) since November 14, 2000. The FCT Space Programme supports the activities of the Portuguese Delegation, promoting the participation of Portuguese companies and R&D institutions in ESA space programmes, including those in the framework of the ESA-European Union agreement.

As a consequence of the Treaty of Lisbon which came into force in 2010, the European Union, through the European Commission, reinforced its political role in the implementation of Space Programmes together with ESA. Although they are different international organizations (with different member states, though Portugal is a member state of both), this partnership enables Europe to take the challenge of positioning itself side by side with great global space powers. This partnership is also important to further exploit the benefits of space applications and technologies for all European citizens. Among optional programmes, Portugal subscribes almost all programmatic domains with the exception of those related directly to building and exploiting the International Space Station (ISS).

The FCT Space Programme

Portugal joining ESA was a determinant factor for a dynamic and competitive, albeit small, industrial and technological sector to flourish. The Portuguese Space sector is made of by companies with strong technological competencies and by R&D institutions capable of developing innovative technologies with Space applicability. Portuguese Space sector companies benefit from the high degree of internationalization derived from the pan-european effort of ESA and EU space programmes.

The main mission of the FCT Space Programme is to implement the national space strategy in order to stimulate the development of the Portuguese space sector and to fully exploit the benefits of the participation in European space programmes, namely in ESA and European Commission space programmes. In order to fulfil its mission, the FCT Space Programme is set to stimulate the participation of Portuguese academia and industry in European and international space programmes, while providing recommendations relevant to the implementation of national scientific and technological initiatives and programmes. To contribute to the maintenance of a level of national contribution to ESA and to other international organizations corresponding to the ambitions and capabilities of the scientific and industrial communities, in line with public strategies and policies established for the space domain. To explore the synergies established with other international organizations of which Portugal is a member, and, simultaneously, promote bidirectional technology transfer to other economic activity sectors. To promote the visibility and competitiveness of the Portuguese space sector alongside the main European and international partners and to foster the use of space-enabled technologies and space-based services on a wide range of applications.

PoSAT-1

PoSAT-1, the first Portuguese satellite, was launched into orbit on September 26, 1993, on the 59th flight of the Ariane 4 rocket (an expendable launch system, designed by the Centre national d’études spatiales, CNES, while being manufactured by ArianeGroup and marketed by Arianespace). The launch took place in the Kourou Space Centre, French Guiana. About twenty minutes and thirty-five seconds after launch, at an altitude of eight-hundred and seven kilometres, PoSAT-1 separated itself from the rocket.

The PoSAT-1 weighs about fifty kilograms and belongs to the class of microsatellites, which are between ten and one hundred kilograms. The entire project was developed by a consortium of universities and companies in Portugal and was built at the University of Surrey in England. The total cost was around five million euros, about three million euros paid by the Portuguese Government and two million euros paid by the Portuguese companies involved. The responsible for the project was Fernando Carvalho Rodrigues, known as the father of the first Portuguese satellite.

A national space law in Portugal

Portugal has adopted on January 22, 2019, a national space law. This decree-law (Diário da República n. 15/2019, Série I de 2019-01-22) establishes rules about the access and exercise of space activities, on national territory or abroad, by Portuguese or foreign operators (provided that they are established on national territory). It states that to begin any space activity, for instance the management of launching centres (premises aimed for the launch of space objects), it is mandatory to obtain a license and register the space objects. A unitary license (applied to each space operation) or a global license (applied to all space operations of the same type) may be requested. It states that the license is granted by the Space Authority (AE), within ninety days upon the receipt of the request and after the verification of certain requirements. It is valid for as long as the operation(s) in question may last and may be transferred to another operator, when authorized by the AE (within sixty days). It expires when the space activity ends or if the holder waives the license granted. It also mentions the fact that the AE shall revoke it if its holder does not comply with his/her duties in the exercise of the activity.

The Portuguese national law states that space activities are supervised by the AE. The space objects (objects launched or intended to be launched to space, such as the satellites) must be registered before the AE. It is interesting to see that Portugal has tried defining the “space object”, stating that a space object is “an object launched or intended to be launched to space”. According to the Portuguese’s new space law, the space activities may be subject to a previous qualification of the operators, systems, processes, characteristics and specifications. The previous qualification may be requested before the AE. The previous qualification expires in the cases of termination of the operator’s activity, resignation of the previous qualification certificate and non-compliance with the provisions established by the AE.

The law also focuses on liability, stating that “The operators are responsible for the damages caused during the exercise of the space activity. Therefore, they are bound to hold an indemnity insurance which policy must be submitted upon the submission of the license’s request. The non-compliance with his/her obligations (the submission of false information, for instance) by the space operator incurs an offense and is punishable with fines”.

This decree-law aims to ease the access to the exercise of space activities in the country, through a faster process of licenses’ assignment. It promotes the emergence and development of companies in this activity sector. This decree-law entered into force on the day following its publication.

CHAPTER I, General provisions, Article 1, Object, of the Decreto-Lei n. 16/2019 of January 22, 2019, states that “This decree-law establishes the regime of access and exercise of space activities with a view to: a) regulate the exercise of space activities subject to responsibility, authorization and supervision of the Portuguese Republic, in accordance with the international obligations to which it is subject; b) facilitate and promote the access and exercise of space activities to any operators established in Portugal and from the Portuguese territory; (c) ensure that space activities comply with the principles of the use of outer space, including their peaceful use; d) to protect the political and strategic interests of the Portuguese Republic, ensuring that private space activities do not contend with them”.

CHAPTER I, General provisions, Article 3, Definitions, states that “For the purposes of this Decree-law, the following definitions shall apply: a) launching centre means any installation, fixed or mobile, with the purpose of launching or returning space objects, including all equipment that are necessary for the accomplishment of launches or returns; b) space object is i) an object that has been launched or is intended to be launched in space, in particular in orbit or beyond; ii) any vehicle which is intended to launch an object provided for in the previous sub-paragraph; iii) any component part of space objects referred to in the previous sub-paragraphs”.

Let’s hope that a national space law in Portugal will stimulate Europe’s space activity!