Legal space race lifts off
Australian law firms are taking different paths to address slow and untested regulation in the country's growing space industry.
The private space sector is booming globally, led by heavyweights like Elon Musk's SpaceX, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, Boeing and Airbus. Australia's space industry is still nascent but growing fast enough to warrant lawyers becoming more involved in the sector.
Just today, it was announced that local startup Fleet Space Technologies had raised $150 million in a Series D funding round, with law firm Gadens advising from diligence to completion.
Australia’s key piece of space legislation, the Space (Launches and Returns) Act, is six years old, yet it's still considered to be in its infancy. The legislation remains largely untested, so there's a lack of case law.
But with space technology growing in the country, often to support the resources, agricultural and defence sectors, lawyers are increasingly being called in to figure out how current national law applies.
