OAFP 6100 - Space Policy and Space Law: EU and national perspectives

Space plays today an important role in the EU economy. Space activities are growing exponentially in recent years. Since the beginning of the space race, 6000 rockets have launched 9600 satellites out of which 2600 are still operating. The launch of several mega-constellations, the development of private capacities for launch, the decrease of the cost to build satellites have generated a steep increase in the number of satellites being put into orbits. By 2030, more than 50 000 additional satellites will be in orbit. These satellites allow the development of a multitude of applications: saving lives at sea, improving our response to natural disasters, allowing farmers to better manage their crops climate change, providing more accurate and reliable positioning and timing information for autonomous and connected cars, providing safety of life navigation services to aviation, maritime and land-based users over most of Europe.

The course will be given by two persons with two different perspectives: the national approach (CNES) and the European approach (European Commission). It will allow to cover EU programmes (EGNOS, Galileo, Copernicus, Govsatcom and SSA) as well as other aspects that are not treated at the EU level, for example human space flight.

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Each session will be composed of one presentation by a group of students followed by complementary elements provided by the teacher; there might be occasional guest teachers invited to the course.

The evaluation is composed of 2 elements: 1. Presentations during the course (90% of the mark) Each student will have to prepare a topic. 2. Active participation during the sessions (10% of the mark) The student will have to participate actively during the sessions.

Each course will tackle one specific topic related to space. Students will be expected to read some materials before classes in order to be able to participate to the sessions