Access to and uses of space technology have changed dramatically over the past 10 years. Traditionally, access to space capabilities required dedicated receivers and significant investment. This has changed with the advent of new information technologies that incorporate and disseminate the benefits of space directly to users. This new seamless delivery of space capabilities, from navigation and position to data flows of various types, means that it can be difficult to disentangle space capabilities from other information infrastructures. This also means that the legal structures developed to govern space technologies are being forced into contact with a variety of other legal structures. As new markets, innovative technologies, and increased data access emerge, legal questions abound as the lex specialis of space accommodates these trends. This book investigates how traditional space law is developing as space technology enters the daily lives of individuals everywhere, and how other bodies of law adapt to their interfaces with space technology.
The discourse on space law has lagged behind the swift march of technology. For example, the potential for the delivery of broadband Internet through broadcast satellites was first demonstrated in 1996.1 Only recently, however, have scholars begun to seriously address how network technologies affect the assumptions that underlay the legal framework for space. This book seeks to fill gaps in the literature by examining legal issues that arise from the embedding of the space segment into the networked world at large. Separated into three sections, it includes interdisciplinary chapters from leading and emerging scholars that detail legal issues that result from the risks and opportunities of the digital networking of space technology.
Section i focuses on the issue of cybersecurity for space assets and the needs of a legal practitioner overseeing cybersecurity in the space domain. Cybersecurity has become a dominant risk for space operations of all types. While much of the cybersecurity enterprise is purely technical, law and legal processes play an important role in defining how organizations pursue cyber secure space operations. This section examines the interplay of the technical and legal aspects of cybersecurity in the space domain. Section i opens with a Chapter titled “A Network of Governance,” in which p.j. Blount reflects on the nature of the governance systems that often underlay or supplement legal
Section ii explores the trends of connectivity and accessibility that have been enabled by a number of advances in space technology. The section seeks to engage with the opportunities made possible by developing technologies and examines the role the law plays in ensuring that the space segment is maintained as a critical part of the global network contributing to connecting the world. Simona Spassova explores the difference between harmful interference – a degradation of signal in radiocommunication service – and cyber-attacks based on the transfer of electronic communication under the Radio
Finally, Section iii examines the legal issues associated with data collection from, data transmission through, and data processing in space in light of increasingly powerful computing technologies. The starting point of the chapter written by Leopold Mantl is the fact that big data from space contributes to a range of human activities in the contemporary networked world. One of the most common uses across society is that of geographical information systems (gis), which facilitate an array of functions such as environmental monitoring, land use analysis, and disaster management. The meshing of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (gnss) into these networks presents novel applications for usage of space derived data, including automated transport. It seems, however, that the space origins of the data generated by these structures does not define the legal framework for data generation and distribution. Rather, at the service level, the role of the service provider and the place of service provision are decisive factors for shaping the liability and data protection areas. The amount of data being produced by space assets is constantly increasing, but new computing techniques, such as cloud computing, are keeping pace and offering new ways to store, transfer, and process this data, and these phenomena have
In this place, the editors would like to thank all authors for their valuable contributions, as well ses and the University Luxembourg for their continuous support.
Mahulena Hofmann
P.J. Blount
Horst D. Clausen, Hilmar Linder, and Bernhard Collini-Nocker, “Internet over Direct Broadcast Satellites,” ieee Communications Magazine 37, no. 6 (1999): 146–51.