- At 11:53 AM GMT on January 24, 1978 Kosmos 954 reentered the Earth's atmosphere while travelling on a northeastward track over western Canada.At first the USSR claimed that the satellite had been completely destroyed during re-entry, but later searches showed debris from the satellite had been deposited on Canadian territory along a 600-kilometre (370 mi) path from Great Slave Lake to Baker Lake. The area spans portions of the Northwest Territories, present-day Nunavut, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
TIL about the 1972 Space Liability Convention, pursuant to which a state that launches an object into space is liable for damages caused by that object.
Space law is FASCINATING. The entire civilian space industry has its roots in making technology to lob nukes at cities on the other side of earth, which is why the US and Russia and China get concerned when states like Brazil, Israel, India, Pakistan et al make a civilian space program and start launching satellites. If you can throw a satellite into orbit, you can throw a bomb into a suborbital flight on the same hardware. This is why export and national origin laws exist and why SpaceX can only hire (with very few exceptions) US nationals. If you start building rockets, lots of Intergovernmental agencies start looking at you. The ABA has a whole chapter dedicated to space law! The Wiki page is a great starter if all you want is an "Explain it like a non-lawyer" level. The rules and laws on geostationary satellites alone makes you want to sit back and laugh. Space is empty, well, space, but GEO is very critical real estate that needs to be protected and allocated, so we have a treaty providing what amounts to squatting rights at that specific orbit.
That is awesome. I actually am a lawyer but went to a securities and tax law school and not a space law school unfortunately. :) McGill law school in Montreal has about ten profs of space law. A few American schools and a few internationally also offer the program. I did know about the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space and the Moon Treaty and the Registry Convention but not the Liability Convention. TIL