1. INTRODUCTION
At the end of November, India's Space Research Organisation
(the "ISRO") launched a primary
observation satellite and deployed another 30 international
co-passengers, commercial satellites belonging to 8 different
countries. Clearly, the sky is no longer the limit and the venture
into space for technological and economic development, is perhaps
the cutting-edge question in science at the moment,
spawning a number of new industries in the coming decades.
While traditionally, space has always been the exclusive domain
of the public sector, the final frontier is gradually
opening up to the private sector as technology increasingly enables
and empowers private companies with the ability to put things into
orbit (and perhaps beyond) for the purpose of providing services on
a commercial basis. While it is telecommunications and geo-mapping
services today, tomorrow, it could be mining or even far more
exotic activities, that was once the exclusive realm of
