Star Laws – The Bill Awakens

The Malaysian Space Board Bill 2020 ("the Bill") was presented for its first reading before the Dewan Rakyat on 3 November 2020 during the previous meeting of Parliament. The second and third readings of the Bill have been postponed to the next meeting of Parliament. The Bill is noteworthy as it represents a new frontier for legislation in Malaysia – the regulation of the space industry.

The purpose of the Bill is to establish a Malaysian Space Board to regulate certain space-related activities, to regulate the registration of 'space objects' and to provide for certain space-related offences.

Defining the Galaxy

For the first time in any Malaysian law, the Bill defines "space" as a void extending from 100km above mean sea level. This distance of 100km above mean sea level is seemingly derived from what is known in the scientific community as the Kármán Line, a widely (but not universally) accepted boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space.