NASA is flying to the moon in 2026!
NASA is sending astronauts around the moon with the Artemis II mission, hoping to launch as early as February 6th for a 10-day journey to test systems for future landing missions. This will be the first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years.
Exactly eight years earlier, on February 6th, 2018, SpaceX launched its first Falcon Heavy rocket with an unconventional payload: Elon Musk’s red Tesla Roadster, driven by a spacesuit-clad mannequin named Starman, “listening” to David Bowie’s Space Oddity as it slipped into deep space.
As Starman blasted off, space law entered a new phase—one that is now accelerating rapidly as humanity prepares for a sustained presence beyond Earth.
Space law in a commercial and multipolar space economy
Space law is the collection of international treaties, national statutes, regulations, and customary practices governing human activity in outer space. For decades, that framework assumed a world dominated by a handful of state actors. The core treaties—negotiated through the United Nations beginning in the 1960s—were designed to prevent conflict, prohibit national appropriation, and ensure that space activities benefited all humankind.
By 2026, those assumptions no longer reflect reality.
Commercial launch providers, satellite operators, data companies, and defense contractors now outnumber government actors in space. At the same time, space has become multipolar, with the United States, China, Europe, India, and others pursuing divergent strategic and commercial goals. The result is a legal environment defined less by comprehensive international agreement and more by national regulation, bilateral commitments, and industry-driven standards.
Lunar governance and the Artemis Accords
The most consequential development for space law in the coming decade is the return to the Moon.
NASA’s Artemis program aims to establish a sustained human presence on the lunar surface, supported by commercial partners and allied nations. To provide a legal and policy framework for that effort, the United States introduced the Artemis Accords—a set of nonbinding principles addressing transparency, interoperability, emergency assistance, space resource utilization, and the creation of “safety zones” around lunar operations.
For lawyers, the Accords raise foundational questions that will shape practice for years to come:
- How do safety zones coexist with the Outer Space Treaty’s prohibition on national appropriation?
- What legal rights attach to extracted lunar resources, and how are those rights recognized across jurisdictions?
- How will disputes between commercial operators on the Moon be resolved, and under what law?
- What environmental obligations apply to lunar sites of scientific or historic significance?
As more countries sign onto or explicitly decline to join the Artemis Accords, space law is fragmenting into competing governance models, creating both legal uncertainty and demand for sophisticated counsel.
Megaconstellations and the congested orbit problem
While lunar activity captures public imagination, the most immediate legal pressure point is closer to home: Earth orbit.
Megaconstellations consisting of tens of thousands of satellites now dominate low Earth orbit, supporting broadband internet, Earth observation, and military communications. These systems strain existing regulatory frameworks governing spectrum allocation, orbital slots, debris mitigation, and collision avoidance.
Key legal challenges moving into the late 2020s include:
- Liability for satellite collisions and cascading debris events
- Coordination between national regulators and international bodies such as the International Telecommunication Union
- Environmental and sustainability standards for orbital operations
- Insurance availability and pricing for increasingly crowded orbits
- National security concerns tied to dual-use satellite infrastructure
As congestion increases, lawyers will play a central role in shaping the norms, contracts, and regulatory regimes that keep orbital space usable.
Space tourism, commercial stations, and human risk
Human spaceflight is no longer limited to government astronauts. Suborbital tourism, private missions to orbit, and plans for commercial space stations are pushing regulators to revisit informed consent, crew qualification, medical screening, and liability waivers.
By 2026 and beyond, the legal questions shift from whether private individuals can go to space to under what conditions:
- What duty of care do operators owe to passengers and professional crew?
- How are injuries or deaths handled when incidents occur beyond national territory?
- Which jurisdiction’s courts hear disputes arising from multinational missions?
- How will insurers underwrite risk for long-duration private habitation in space?
These issues are driving the gradual evolution of a spaceflight regulatory regime that resembles early aviation law—incremental, reactive, and heavily influenced by industry practice.
Practicing space law
The future space lawyer is unlikely to practice “pure” space law. Instead, the addition of space expertise will increasingly differentiate lawyers in corporate transactions, project finance, insurance, export controls, regulatory compliance, international arbitration, and national security. Candidates who demonstrate this hybrid capability, especially those comfortable working with engineers, policy teams, and regulators, will stand out quickly. The most attractive candidates typically will begin their careers by building strong foundations in transferable disciplines and layering space exposure on top through client work, regulatory experience, or targeted education.
Most law school curricula already include courses that are transferable to space law practice, including international law, administrative law, contracts, finance, and national security law. A small number of institutions, however, offer specialized programs focused directly on space law. In the United States, the University of Mississippi School of Law has long offered a well-known LL.M. in Air and Space Law. The University of Nebraska–Lincoln offers advanced degrees in space, cyber, and telecommunications law, reflecting the convergence of space systems with communications and data infrastructure. Other law schools support space law through clinics, research centers, journals, and student societies, underscoring the field’s growing legitimacy within legal academia.
Who Employs Space Lawyers
Law firms, government agencies, and in-house legal departments are already seeking lawyers who can translate traditional legal principles into a technically complex, geopolitically sensitive environment. As space activity expands beyond Earth’s orbit and toward sustained off-world operations, that demand will grow.
- Private Industry and Aerospace Companies.
Satellite operators, launch providers, manufacturers, and data companies remain the largest source of space-related legal work. Satellite regulation, licensing, financing, and insurance continue to be core areas of practice, given satellites’ central role in communications, navigation, Earth observation, and defense. Many in-house space lawyers, however, spend much of their time on traditional corporate, regulatory, government-contracts, compliance, and risk-management matters, with “space law” forming one component of a broader practice. - Government and Regulatory Agencies.
Agencies such as the U.S. Department of State, Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration play key roles in licensing, safety oversight, spectrum allocation, and national security regulation. As commercial activity accelerates, these agencies continue to refine frameworks for launch approvals, reentry licensing, and human spaceflight safety. Several U.S. states have enacted statutes limiting liability for spaceflight participants, signaling growing legislative attention at the state level as well. Internationally, organizations such as NASA and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs remain central to treaty interpretation, policy development, and multilateral coordination. - Law Firms.
Law firms increasingly serve space-industry clients through cross-disciplinary practices rather than standalone “space law” groups. Firms advise on aircraft and satellite finance, launch and procurement contracts, insurance coverage, regulatory compliance, export controls, spectrum coordination, government contracts, and dispute resolution. Some firms, particularly in Washington, D.C., have built deep institutional knowledge in areas such as FAA launch licensing, FCC regulation, ITAR compliance, and international treaty work, positioning themselves at the intersection of law, policy, and emerging technology.
Looking Forward
Much of today’s space law extends familiar legal concepts into an unfamiliar environment. It’s a developing field shaped in real time by technological ambition, commercial pressure, and geopolitical reality. At this point, it’s no longer about keeping space neutral, but rather it’s about managing competition, risk, and cooperation in an environment rapidly filling with people, capital, and infrastructure.
As humanity moves toward sustained lunar activity, commercial space stations, and deeper-space exploration, lawyers will confront questions for which no precedent yet exists. The next decade will not be defined by a single grand treaty, but by a patchwork of regulations, accords, contracts, and new precedents shaped by lawyers working alongside engineers, policymakers, and business leaders.
Starman may still be drifting through space, and more astronauts are heading to the moon, but lawyers are catching up. Space law, quite literally, is venturing where no lawyer has gone before.
Resources:
You can track Starman’s progress here: https://www.whereisroadster.com/index.html
Learn more about the Artemis II mission here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/
