November 25, 2015

The U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (H.R. 2262) passed the Senate and House of Representatives and was signed into law by the President on November 25.  The act, introduced by Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on May 12, 2015, promotes the commercialization of space exploration and mining efforts to extract resources from asteroids.

The act awards ownership of any asteroid materials obtained from outer space to the entity that obtained them. The act also directs the Department of Transportation, which oversees commercial launch and reentry operations, to promote safe commercial space operations and to report on the development of voluntary consensus standards by the commercial space transportation industry.

Sources: congress.gov, eenews