Speaking at a Space Café meeting at BIL headquarters on 26 February, deputy prime minister and economy minister Etienne Schneider told an audience of over 100 people that the US ambassador to Luxembourg had said the White House was very interested in Luxembourg’s activities in the newspace sector.
“The first thing I thought was ‘that’s not good because I’m not minister of defence any more. I won’t be able to defend my initiative’. He explained that they really see a bright future between Luxembourg and the US in order to put our forces together to further develop our activities,” the minister said.
He explained that prior to giving his speech, ambassador Randy Evans had given the minister a document outlining US cooperation proposals in this sector. “I will read it and come back to the ambassador tomorrow. I’m pretty sure it will be the most far-reaching agreement we sign since the launch of the [Space Resources] initiative. I’m really looking forward to this cooperation with the US.”
If signed in the coming weeks, it would make the US the eighth country to sign an agreement with Luxembourg in relation to an international framework on the exploitation of space resources, after Belgium, China, Japan, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Poland and the United Arab Emirates. Schneider explained the goal was to update the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty giving the first legal and regulatory framework to “find common rules and solutions” on matters including space debris and to “avoid copying the mistakes we made on earth during the last 200 years of industrialising the planet.”
“We need a clear statement from the UN and to have the tight regulation for that,” Schneider said.
Space ethics hub
The Space Resources Initiative, launched in 2016 following discussions with newspace actors in the US, was spearheaded by the minister in a bid to diversify the economy. His goal was to create an ecosystem for newspace companies to work on peacefully exploring and exploiting space resources, such as rare minerals. In addition to welcoming some 20 new companies to the country, and introducing a Space resources regulation, in 2018 Luxembourg launched the Luxembourg Space Agency, a body supporting newspace activities in the country.
On Tuesday, Schneider announced his plan to position the country as a space ethics hub, to handle questions related to space debris but also how to ensure minerals mined in space benefit all of humankind, and not just richer nations. “In the future, we will build a team of experts in that domain as well,” he said.
The Space Café initiative was launched in early 2018 by ispace Luxembourg to ensure an open dialogue with the country about the sector’s activities. ispace Luxembourg managing director Kyle Acierno explained that for organisational reasons in future it will be organised by not-for-profit the Luxembourg Space Federation, which thus far is comprised of Hydrosat, ispace and Made in Space.
The event also served as a farewell for Acierno, who has headed the local subsidiary of the Japanese micro-robotics firm for the past two years and has been promoted to vice president of global sales in Japan. Schneider used the opportunity to thank him for his commitment to the initiative.