Policy and Law

by Sara M. Langston, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical UniversityOn May 30, 2020, millions of Americans watched the inaugural SpaceX Crew Dragon launch NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. This mission marked two significant events: First, the return of launch to orbit capability for human spaceflight from the United States.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and the European Space Policy Institute, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and briefs. This is ESPI Briefs No. 37: ‘Rethinking the Assessment of the Value of Spectrum’, originally published in January 2020.

Join the conversation about "Race in Space" - a conversation about equality and civil rights with diverse perspectives from within and outside the US space community.

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency digitally signed an agreement today to increase collaboration on the long-term sustainability of space activities and promote the use of space for sustainable development.

Serbia and China signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on space technology cooperation on 5 June 2020. The MoU includes a provision for the joint development of a Sino-Serbian satellite.

The Sultanate of Oman’s Space Communication Technologies LLC (SCT) issued on 3 June 2020 an invitation for consultancy bids to help the company determine the requirements for Oman’s first communications satellite.

The heads of the space agencies from the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency (ESA) are scheduled to meet on 9 June 2020 via video conference in order to discuss cooperation on lunar exploration and the International Space Station (ISS).

The COVID 19 pandemic has ripped apart all sectors of the world’s societal fabric and rendered economies to a state of paralysis. Multilateral space diplomacy has not been immune to this chaos.

In this week's Space Cafe Web Talk Dr. Raji Rajagopalan discussed how India’s approach to outer space has changed over the last decade and how it is now driven increasingly by national security concerns.

In separate media appearances last week, Russian and Chinese diplomatic and military officials have criticised US – and allied – military space programmes and ambitions.