Policy and Law

In remarks made marking the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between the United States and Japan at both a commemorative ceremony and in the Japanese Diet, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged that Japan will make efforts to counter threats in space and cyberspace and that the Japanese Self Defense Forces (SDF) will stand up its Space Domain Mission Unit (SDMU) in April 2020, with the aim of having it fully operational by 2022.

Given the very large turnout for registration to the second batch seeking to join the UAE Astronaut Programme, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) has extended the deadline for application submissions until 31 March 2020, aimed at providing Emiratis aspiring to engage in scientific exploration and manned space missions the opportunity to enrol in the programme.

China is looking forward to 2020 being a banner year for its ambitious space programme, according to a Chinese government report released on 17 January 2020.

During a meeting of a parliamentary committee, Étienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy confirmed that the Government of Luxembourg, together with public and private sector partners, have invested a stake in Orbital Ventures, an investment fund focused on early stage companies engaged in space activities.

The UAE Space Agency and the Saudi Space Commission met on the sidelines of the Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council in Riyadh, the capital city of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on 10 January 2020, where both parties officially activated their Memorandum of Understanding that was initially signed last year.

In the presence of Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Egypt’s Minister for Higher Education and Scientific Research, and Stéphane Romatet, France’s Ambassador to Egypt, Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall opened the first joint France-Egypt Space Seminar in Cairo on 14 January 2020.

As part of the official visit to China of Frédérique Vidal, the Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Centre national d’etudes spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall and Bai Chunli, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), signed a framework agreement on space cooperation on 13 January 2020.

In its latest analysis of satellite manufacturing and launch services, Satellites to be Built and Launched by 2028, Euroconsult projects that the satellite market will experience a radical transformation in the quantity, value and mass of the satellites to be built and launched with a four-fold increase in the number of satellites at a yearly average of 990 satellites to be launched, compared to a yearly average of 230 satellites in the previous decade.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Defence Agency (EDA) are embarking on new cooperative projects for exploring unknown or potentially hazardous environments: harnessing drones for the monitoring of disaster-stricken regions or toxic spill sites and making use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to navigate across the surface of asteroids or other terra incognita.

The UAE Space Agency announced its collaboration with the Abu Dhabi-based global innovation hub, Krypto Labs, to launch the UAE NewSpace Innovation Programme, which aims to maximise the growth of space technology start-ups with New Space, the rising private spaceflight industry.