Space Liability Convention

The orbit it left behind has an estimated lifetime near 1,000 years.

The legal consequences sit in Articles VI and VII of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the Liability Convention of 1972, National Security Presidential Memorandum 20 of August 20, 2019, and Space Policy Directive 6 of December 16, 2020.

Together, they place responsibility, absolute liability for damage on Earth, and disposal expectations on the launching party.

Detailed findings.

How does Snap Ten A compare with later space reactors? The Soviet radar ocean reconnaissance satellites, which flew fission reactors in low orbits, produced the re-entry that tested the liability rules.

Cosmos nine hundred fifty-four re-entered over northern Canada on January twenty-four, nineteen hundred and seventy-eight.

Canada presented a claim under the liability convention, and the two governments settled it by protocol in nineteen hundred and eighty-one.

After the nineteen hundred and seventy-eight re-entry, later Soviet satellites ejected their reactor cores to higher orbits at end of mission, and the liquid NaK coolant vented as droplets that formed a debris population NASA has since modeled.