Law Commons^™

2015 Commercial Space Industry Snapshot As Seen Through The Eyes Of The International Symposium For Personal And Commercial Spaceflight (Ispcs), Sarah J. Nilsson Esq.

Publications

The International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) is a nonprofit independently run annual event, that has taken place these past 11 years, whose speakers capture the growth and diversification of the global commercial space industry in the form of short powerful talks. Hence, it was appropriate that a 2015 snapshot of the commercial space industry should look at this body of experience and knowledge. The key developments, the key players and an accurate state of the industry are hereby presented through the eyes of the ISPCS from this past eleventh symposium that spanned two days and was held …

The Us Space Launch Competitiveness Act Of 2015, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

On November 25, 2015, President Obama signed into law the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (H.R. 2262). This Act encompasses four titles: I. Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship (acronym: SPACE), II. Commercial Remote Sensing, III. Office of Space Commerce, and IV. Space Resource Exploration and Utilization.

Title I amends the Commercial Space Launch Act, which comprises the licensing regime for launches, reentries, and launch port activities, including those carrying spaceflight participants on board.

Title II amends the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, which allowed for the licensing of private commercial satellite remote-sensing operations, and essentially requires the Secretary …

Newsroom: Logan On Drone Law, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

One Centimeter Over My Back Yard: Where Does Federal Preemption Of State Drone Regulation Start?, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

The proliferation of cheap civilian drones and their obvious utility for precision agriculture, motion picture and television production, aerial surveying, newsgathering, utility infrastructure inspection, and disaster relief has accelerated the FAA’s sluggish effort to develop a proposal for generally applicable rules and caused it to grant more than 600 “section 333 exemptions” permitting commercial drone flight before its rules are finalized.

Federal preemption in the field of aviation safety regulation is generally assumed, but political pressure on states and municipalities to regulate drones and the ability of this revolutionary aviation technology to open up space close to the ground for …

Legal Aspects Of Satellite Communications—A Mini Handbook, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Satellite communications, the most extensive, commercialized, and applications-oriented of outer space activities, is not a sector ruled by a single, coherent legal regime even at the international level. Already at present at least ten regimes would potentially or actually impact any particular satellite operation, service, or scenario. The current contribution, intended as a “mini-handbook” excerpted from the 2015 Handbook of Space Law published by the present author, addresses only the three generally most important of those regimes: the generic body of international space law, the regime developed in the context of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the trade regime …

Legal Aspects Of Navigation: The Cases For Privacy And Liability: An Introduction For Non-Lawyers, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Navigation making use of advanced technologies—notably involving radiowaves providing precise information on positioning, navigation options, and on the surrounding geographic environment—has become an ever more present phenomenon in today’s societies. Needless to say, this raises also a number of profound legal issues, some more general in nature, some more specific to the navigation sector or even a specific subsector thereof, alternatively taking on a specific flavor once arising in that context. Among those, arguably the issues of privacy and protection of data against undue interference, respectively liability for erroneous positioning, navigation, or environmental information and any damage or loss suffered …

Prime Air Encounters Faa Turbulence, Julie Cummings

GGU Law Review Blog

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), often called drones, are rapidly entering the public space. Because drones operate in federal airspace, Congress tasked the FAA with creating new safety rules to address commercial drone flight. In February, the FAA released its proposed new rules governing drones weighing less than 55 pounds, which are used for non‑recreational purposes. Among other restrictions, the proposed rules limit flights to daylight, visual‑line‑of‑sight, below 500 feet, at flight speeds not to exceed 100 miles per hour. Additionally, operators must not fly drones over people. The FAA would also require operators to be certified and to incur other …

Waste And Duplication In Nasa Programs: The Need To Enhance U.S. Space Program Efficiency, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The U.S. Government faces acute budgetary deficits and national debt problems in the Obama Administration. These problems have been brought about by decades of unsustainable government spending affecting all agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (NASA). An outgrowth of this fiscal profligacy is the presence of wasteful and duplicative programs within NASA that prevent this agency from achieving its space science and human spaceflight objectives. These problems occur due to mismanagement of these programs from NASA and the creation of these programs by the U.S. Congress and congressional committees. This occurs because congressional appropriators tend to be more …

Effective Exercise Of ‘In-Space Jurisdiction’: The Us Approach And The Problems It Is Facing, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

As mankind moves closer to the fiftieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Outer Space Treaty, the framework international treaty laying down the baseline regime for space activities, it may be considered a major achievement that the treaty, as well as some of its offspring—notably the Rescue Agreement, Liability Convention, and Registration Convention—seem to be as relevant as ever. This is a major feat in an international era of many fundamental changes in the geopolitical, economic, and social context.

Nevertheless, the increasing involvement of private entities in many fields of space activity beyond the (by now) more “traditional” ones of …

About The New Pca Rules And Their Application To Satellite Communication Disputes, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

In 2011 the PCA Optional Rules for Arbitration of Disputes Relating to Outer Space Activities were adopted. The present contribution addresses the possible relevance of these new rules for disputes regarding international satellite communication, noting the existence of various dispute settlement regimes already available and analyzing their respective usefulness for such international satellite communications disputes.

The “Space Side” To “Harmful Interference”—Evaluating Regulatory Instruments In Addressing Interference Issues In The Context Of Satellite Communications, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Interference issues in the context of satellite communications can, in principle, be tackled with legal means from a variety of angles, due to the multifaceted character of both interference and satellite communications as a sector. From that perspective, the present contribution addresses the most important regulatory instruments available to address the particular aspects of satellite communications related to their usage of outer space, and represents a first summary effort to evaluate their particular scope, approach, and general effectiveness.

The Regulation Of The Recreational Use Of “Drones” For Aerial Photography And Videography: Comparing Singapore’S Unmanned Aircraft Act With Other Legislation, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the last few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of remote-controlled copters or “drones” by recreational users to capture aerial photographs and videos on an unprecedented scale. The convergence of cutting-edge technological developments in gyroscopic gimbals, long-range wireless transmissions, GPS-enabled stabilisation and flightpath-preprogramming, first-person-views, and compact digital imaging has led to the proliferation of these camera-carrying devices that even hobbyists can pilot with reasonable safety. However, there has been a consistent stream of public concern relating to issues of safety, privacy, and disruption of commercial interests. Lost in the paranoid cacophony is a question that …

Regulating Real-World Surveillance, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

A number of laws govern information gathering, or surveillance, by private parties in the physical world. But we lack a compelling theory of privacy harm that accounts for the state's interest in enacting these laws. Without a theory of privacy harm, these laws will be enacted piecemeal. Legislators will have a difficult time justifying the laws to constituents; the laws will not be adequately tailored to legislative interest; and courts will find it challenging to weigh privacy harms against other strong values, such as freedom of expression.

This Article identifies the government interest in enacting laws governing surveillance by private …

State Labs Of Federalism And Law Enforcement 'Drone' Use, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article reviews and assesses current state legislation regulating law enforcement use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The legislation runs the gamut of permissive to restrictive and even utilizes different terms for the same object of regulation, UAS. These laws are the confused and at times even contradictory extension of societal views about UAS. The article reviews the U.S. Supreme Court’s manned aircraft trilogy of cases, California v. Ciraolo, Florida v. Riley, and Dow Chemical v. U.S. and two significant technology based decisions, Kyllo v. U.S. and U.S. v. Jones, and applies them to current state efforts to regulate law …