Human Planetary Exploration

The human exploration of planetary bodies started with the Apollo missions to the Moon, which provided valuable lessons learned and experience for the future human exploration. Based on that, the design of hardware and operations need to further be developed to also overcome the new challenges, which arise when planning crewed missions to Mars and beyond. This chapter provides an overview about the environment and structure of the Red Planet and discusses the challenges on operations and hardware correlated to it. It further provides insights into the considerations regarding the hardware development which need to be investigated and defined before launching a crewed mission to Mars.

The International Space Station

The International Space Station is certainly one of the most astounding achievements of humankind in space. Especially from a legal point of view, the creation of the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) and its sub-instruments specifically for the ISS was a major success: the IGA was the first grand-scale multi-national legally binding space-related treaty drafted, ratified, and implemented by the major space faring nations since the drafting of the five UN Space Treaties roughly 20 years before. And still today, the legal framework of the ISS is a stand-alone legal system which can serve as model for other missions, as it refines and develops in an innovative way the rules laid out in the five UN Space Treaties and at the same time manages to coordinate and organize management, utilization, and financing between all the partners. This chapter intends to shed light on the complex legal system governing the ISS and to point out the novelties of the IGA-Structure in comparison with the conventional body of international space law.

The International Space Station

A new era of spaceflight dawned following the conclusion of the United States and Russian space race. This new era has been marked by the design, assembly, and operation of one of the greatest engineering feats mankind has accomplished, the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is comprised of hundreds of thousands of kilograms of material built on the ground and transported to space for assembly. It houses an artificial atmosphere to sustain life in outer space and has been continually inhabited for over 15 years. This chapter describes the technical complexity of the ISS, the background of how it was assembled, its major systems, details of crew life onboard, commercial usage of the resource, and examples of mishaps that have occurred during the ISS's operation. The technical details of the ISS provide a glimpse into what future space stations that might orbit the Moon and Mars will resemble.

Space Launchers

This chapter outlines certain core legal topics that arise in connection with the delivery of a separated payload into or beyond Earth orbit. The first part deals with some of the established approaches to procuring launch services, as well as some of the common features of launch service agreements that balance the interests of the launch service provider and its customer. The second part of the chapter looks at governmental authorization required to carry out a launch. While safety standards and success rates continually improve, launching a space object is still the riskiest part of most space missions and is therefore a carefully regulated aspect of space activity, with participants having to obtain prior authorization from a competent national authority. Finally, the third part explores some of the legal consequences in international law of launching a space object, including the maintenance of a register of space objects launched, and the burden of liability that is placed on “launching states.”

In-Situ Resource Utilization

Human spaceflight is an expensive endeavor. Every kilogram that needs to be transported to low Earth orbit or beyond costs tens of thousands of dollars, with the cost increasing exponentially the farther humanity extends its reach into the solar system and beyond. It is therefore prudent, if not necessary, to consider the use of resources that are available at the destination of a given exploration mission. This concept is called in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). The processes that are required to extract useful materials from the local environment can not only be used to support a human crew, but also to obtain resources that are of value on Earth and can thus be returned there for commercial gain. This chapter provides background information on ISRU in general and discusses the most important technologies and processes that are currently employed or under development.

Space Launchers

Space travel is one of the largest technological efforts and requires careful planning and a systematic approach in every technical and human aspect. In this chapter, a space mission example will be divided into four consecutive phases, starting with payload and launcher definition and ending with the launch of the rocket. The discussion of the first phase provides general considerations of manned and unmanned commercial missions, orbits, and trade-offs for small satellites. The subsequent phase covers transportation issues of the payload to the launch site. The discussion of the payload integration process and launch proceeding complete the technical contribution of the chapter. A rough market overview is presented in the conclusion.

Space Policy

This chapter explores the concept of space policy and sheds light on its importance in understanding the nature and evolution of space activities and programs. More specifically, this chapter seeks to offer an introduction on how space policy can be defined and understood, followed by an overview of the main current trajectories of space policies of both national actors as well as international and intergovernmental institutions. Finally, this chapter formulates some conclusions regarding the future potential avenues of space policy and describes how these scenarios could impact the future of human activities and behaviour in space.

On-Orbit Servicing and Active Debris Removal

This chapter introduces the challenge of space debris and the concepts of on-orbit servicing and active debris removal. The evolution of the debris population is put into a historical perspective, observation and modelling methods are described, and internationally agreed mitigation strategies are briefly introduced. Proposed mission types and the required technologies for servicing and removal activities are detailed and their challenges explained. Where applicable, past, current, and proposed activities are summarized to illustrate the concepts.

Mega-Constellations

As a reflection of the fast-paced world we currently live in, a new era in satellite technology begins to emerge. This sector, of vital importance for our day-to-day lives, is in a period of significant change, characterized by the use of large satellite constellations. These mega-constellations aim to provide, among other things, worldwide internet coverage. Since 2015, satellite internet providers such as Space X and OneWeb have been working on the idea of mega-constellations and intend to launch circa 4.000 and 882 satellites respectively, thus forcing satellite manufacturers to lower the costs drastically. However, many legal issues may arise since the vast amounts of satellites will significantly increase the risk of collision with other satellites or spacecraft.

Suborbital Spaceflight

One of the major historical milestones of spaceflight, suborbital flights played a vital role in the development of technologies and procedures for the operation of spacecraft. Today suborbital flights still play an important part in scientific and commercial fields, and in this chapter, the basic terms and values will be defined and also explained in the historical context. Small launching system for scientific applications called sounding rockets have a significant importance due to an unbeatable flexibility and cost effectiveness and the new and emerging field of commercial human flights to the edge of space is growing as an economically sound business model for private participants. Either of them will be detailed in the appropriate sub-chapters, followed by an outlook on the future possibilities of suborbital flights.