Brussels, 03/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 3 February, the Luxembourg Minister for the Economy, Étienne Schneider, launched a surprise initiative on space resources for developing a stable legal framework for mineral resources mined by geo-cruisers.
Following on from the US and last November's adoption at Congress of the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (CSLCA), Luxembourg is the first European country to take ownership of the question involving the use of mineral resources in outer space. Nonetheless, one government source indicated that “there is no link to the US vote… The project has been under examination since 2013”. The aim is to provide private operators with a clear and stable legal framework for ensuring the sector's expansion.
The same source explained to EUROPE that “Luxembourg has always been a pioneer in the domain of using space resources”. The Grand Duchy now wants to become a host country for this developing sector. It is already the country where Deep Space Industries is based, a Californian space minerals company, explained our source and talks are continuing with the US Planetary Resources company, which has the same goals in this connection.
A legal impact study is currently being carried out by the University of Luxembourg to locate the project on the lines of the international treaties, particularly the UN Space Treaty. According to this Treaty, no country can claim territory in outer space but can appropriate the minerals and substances it extracts from it. The results from the study are expected to be made known in a few weeks time and a legislative project is also expected to be submitted to the Luxembourg Parliament in September.
At the same time, the Luxembourg government is hoping to open multilateral discussions on its project, “with member states from the Union, as well as non-members”. The same source also added that the Luxembourg government wanted to include its initiative on the agenda of the next Competitiveness Council on space policy on 26 May. The question may also be debated at the inter-governmental institution this Friday, as part of the Space Workgroup and in the perspective of the next meeting, indicated another European source.
The Luxembourg government has already said that the budget allocated to the initiative will be part of the national contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA) budget to be negotiated in December 2016. In a reply to EUROPE, ESA Director-General, Jan Wörner, welcomed the Luxembourg initiative and sees it as an opportunity for promoting its moon base project (see EUROPE 11469). The latter believes that the Luxembourg announcement does not come as a total surprise because increasing numbers of states and companies are becoming interested in the bountiful mining resources in the solar system. It is forecasting the first experimental extractions to take place over the next 10 years. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)