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Space policy, private sector and governance

How space is governed and opened to private firms: space policy and its bodies, startups and the space economy, international cooperation and treaties, and debris and traffic in orbit. Prelims has asked about the part private entities play in India's space programme.

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Artemis Accords: A United States led, non-binding set of principles for the peaceful and transparent exploration and use of the Moon and other celestial bodies, including rules on resource extraction.

Moon Agreement: The 1979 United Nations treaty declaring the Moon and its resources the common heritage of mankind. Few spacefaring nations have ratified it.

Space debris: Dead satellites, spent rocket stages and fragments from break ups and collisions, left in orbit at orbital speed, so that even a small piece can destroy a working spacecraft.

Low earth orbit: The band of orbits roughly 160 to 2,000 km above the Earth, where most satellites and the crewed space stations fly.

Planned re entry: Bringing a spacecraft or rocket stage back into the atmosphere deliberately, at a chosen time and over a chosen place, rather than letting it fall where it will.

IN-SPACe: Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, the single window nodal agency under the Department of Space, set up in 2020 to authorise and promote private space activity.

NSIL: NewSpace India Limited, a public sector undertaking under the Department of Space and ISRO's commercial arm.

Non-governmental entities: The policy's term for private companies, startups and academia allowed to take part in space activities end to end.

Technology transfer: Handing a mature design and its manufacturing expertise to industry, with the developer supporting the company for a fixed period.

Earth observation constellation: A group of imaging satellites flown and operated together, so that a place on the ground is photographed far more often than a single satellite could manage.

hyperspectral: Imaging in hundreds of narrow wavelength bands rather than a few broad ones, which lets a satellite tell materials apart instead of only seeing shapes.

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