In the first few months of 2025, there’s been a flurry of private venture space missions. Some have been successful, such as American company Firefly Aerospace landing its spacecraft Blue Ghost Mission 1 on the Moon. This was the first successful lunar landing of a privately owned spacecraft.
But there have also been several recent failures. None have been more spectacular than the repeated explosions of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship rockets in January and March.
In theory, there are a range of international laws governing these activities. However, most were established roughly half a century ago, before space was within reach of private companies eager to explore it and exploit its untapped resources.
