Norms Governing Rescue and Return

Abstract

Abstract The issues of rescue and return have grown in parallel with the development of space exploration activities. The launch of Sputnik in 1957 also exposed the difficulties in relation to the return of such satellites to foreign soil. State practice mandates that a spacecraft which lands on foreign soil remain the property of the launching state and should be returned upon payment of compensation for any damages caused by such landing. As a response to this, on 19 December 1967, the General Assembly of the United Nations, by a vote of 115–0, approved the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space 1968 (hereinafter the Rescue Agreement). This chapter, along with deconstructing the Rescue Agreement, also analyses the essential substantive clauses of the Rescue Agreement, namely ‘Personnel of a spacecraft’ and ‘Space objects and their launching authorities’. The chapter will also highlight the issues that arise due to launching from non-sovereign territory, such as the high seas, which complicate the question of ‘launching authority’. The second section of the chapter focuses on the two underlying Articles V and VIII of the Outer Space Treaty dealing with the status of astronauts and the ownership of space objects by the launching state. The third section studies the issues relating to the interpretation of private and public spaceflight in the Rescue Agreement.