Ground rules

Space agencies and private players must adhere to exploration norms to ensure integrity of space research

- ROHINI KRISHNAMURTHY

IN 2018, Swarm Technologies, a US startup, launched four small satellites into space on an Indian rocket that carried 31 payloads. The start up had been denied a licence by the US government because the satellites were too small to be tracked in space. The firm put its satellites on the launch anyway.

In February 2019, Israeli private company SpaceIL and space agency Israel Aerospace Industries launched Beresheet-the country's first lunar mission and the first attempt by a private firm to land on the moon. The spacecraft crashed on the moon in 2019.

Four months later, it emerged that Arch Mission Foundation, a US non-profit, had secretly sent a payload of microscopic eight-legged animals called tardigrades on Beresheet. Tardigrades are the sturdiest organism on Earth. Though experts say that these organisms cannot reproduce or establish a colony in the absence of liquid water and oxygen, their presence on lunar soil has raised ethical questions.

The incidents show not just the private sector’s increasing involvement in space exploration, but also its willingness to circumvent, even break, the basic governing principles.

One of the most important principles is safeguarding the solar system from contamination by Earth life, and Earth from possible extraterrestrial life forms, as enshrined in Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty (ost), a legally binding agreement in force since 1967. A total of 116 nations have ratified ost and are now responsible for ensuring that private organisations within their territories adhere to the principles of planetary protection. Planetary protection is also important to track the microbial population on a spacecraft because microbes might mutate due to evolutionary pressure exerted by space conditions. This can increase their pathogenic potential, which has repercussions on astronauts' health (see 'Space profoundly alters microbes' on p18).