Thursday IAC 2019 GNF : Governance of Space Activities

Governance of space activities will be one of the key topics when we discuss on how human beings should do space activities. Space related treaties enacted through 1960s and 1970s are applied to government space activities and based on the assumption that commercial businesses are subject to government supervision. However, New Space companies that emerged in 2000s are doing their space activities with their own visions and business models. They contribute to vitalization of global space activities with their business proposals on mega-constellation or space resource exploration. On the other hand, concern about sustainability of space activities by human beings are expressed because of gradual and unexpected increase of space debris. Continuous space activities by national space agencies, infrastructure, or vitalization of space industries are still governmental tasks.

This session aims to share the results of comparative studies on national space policy and law, mainly studies on roles of national space agencies, to provide with reference related to governance for national space activities. In addition, Japan Society for Aeronautics and Space Sciences (JSASS) will release “JSASS Space Vision 2050” in April 2019, which points out governance as a key theme of studies in their road map of space policy and law. We will introduce this vision here.