3.14.2007
COPUOS 2007
The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space's (COPUOS) Legal Subcommittee will hold its 46th session on March 26 - April 5, 2007 in Vienna. Here is the provisional agenda.And last month, Feb. 12-27, my second favorite COPUOS body, the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee, held its annual session (the 44th). You can catch up with the daily journals (no final report yet) from that gathering. During the session, a symposium, organized by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) and the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), covered the use of equatorial orbit for space science and space applications, focusing on activities in LEO. I think one or two lawyers may have snuck into that. The session also marked the official opening of the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) 2007.
And as noted in the UN's press statement, the subcommittee adopted the voluntary mitigation guidelines for space debris which are based on the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) space debris mitigation guidelines. Word is, COPUOS will adopt these guidelines.
The Scientific and Technical Subcommittee also continued its multi-year work on issues concerning near-earth objects, space-system-based disaster management support, nuclear power source applications in outer space, and more. Kinda makes you sorry you're a lawyer and not a really talented science type person.
And as I've noted, subcommittee action aside, in this the 50th anniversary of the space age, COPUOS itself will hold its 50th session, June 6-15, 2007, in, as always, lovely Vienna. Happy 50th to COPUOS and all its 67 member states.
