Rescue Agreement

in distress must notify the launching authority and the

Secretary General of the United Nations.
The Rescue Agreement essentially provides that any state
that is a party to the agreement must provide all possi-
ble assistance to rescue the personnel of a spacecraft who
have landed within that states territory, whether because
of an accident, distress, emergency, or unintended land-
ing. If the distress occurs in an area that is beyond the
territory of any nation, then any state party that is in a
position to do so shall, if necessary, extend assistance in
ratied
the search and rescue operation.
signed, but not yet ratied

The Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the

Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects
Launched into Outer Space, also referred to as the 3 Key changes since the Outer
Rescue Agreement is an international agreement setting Space Treaty
forth rights and obligations of states concerning the res-
cue of persons in space. The Agreement was created
by a 19 December 1967 consensus vote in the United 3.1 Parties entitled to be rescued
Nations General Assembly (Resolution 2345 (XXII)). It
came into force on 3 December 1968. Its provisions elab-
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 states simply that
orate on the rescue provisions in Article V of the 1967
astronauts are to be rendered all possible assistance by
Outer Space Treaty. Despite containing more specicity
state parties to the treaty. The Outer Space Treaty does
and detail than the rescue provision in Article V of the
not provide a denition for the term astronaut, and as
Outer Space Treaty, the Rescue Agreement still suers
a result it is unclear whether this provision applies to, for
from vague drafting and the possibility of diering inter-
example, a space tourista person who clearly has not
pretation.
received the training of a traditional astronaut.
The Rescue Agreement adds some clarity to the issue by
1 History referring to the personnel of a spacecraft rather than
astronauts. However, this phrase again leaves uncertain
whether someone simply along for the ridesuch as a
The UN General Assembly adopted the text of the Res- tourist on a Virgin Galactic ightwould be considered
cue Agreement on 19 December 1967 through Resolu- part of the personnel of a spacecraft.
tion 2345 (XXII). The Agreement opened for signature
on 22 April 1968, and it entered into force on 3 De-
cember 1968. As of May 2013, 92 States have ratied
the Rescue Agreement, 24 have signed, and two inter-
national intergovernmental organisations (the European 3.2 Compensation for recovery of a space
Space Agency and the European Organisation for the object
Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) have declared
their acceptance of the rights and obligations conferred
In the event that a space object or its parts land in the
by the agreement.[1]
territory of another state party, the state where the ob-
ject lands is required (upon the request of the launch-
ing authority) to recover the space object and return it
2 Basic provisions to the launching authority. The Rescue Agreement pro-
vides that the launching state must then compensate the
The Rescue Agreement requires that any state party that state for the costs incurred in recovering and returning the
becomes aware that the personnel of a spacecraft are space object.

1
2 7 EXTERNAL LINKS

4 Rescue in space
At the time the treaty was drafted, the prospect of res-
cuing travelers in space was unlikely, due to the limited
launch capabilities of even the most advanced space pro-
grams, but it has since become more plausible. For ex-
ample, Mir and later the International Space Station have
each maintained docked Russian Soyuz spacecraft to be
used as an escape mechanism in the event of an in-orbit
emergency; in certain scenarios this vessel might also be
able to assist in a rescue.
A signicant shift in attitudes toward in-orbit rescues
came as a result of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster,
after which NASA took steps to prepare the STS-3xx or
Launch on Need missions to provide for rescue in certain
scenarios.[2] However, this capability was never exercised
during the remainder of the Space Shuttle program.

5 Criticism
The Rescue Agreement has been criticised for being
vague, especially regarding the denition of who is en-
titled to be rescued and the denition of what constitutes
a spacecraft and its component parts.
The cost burden of a rescue mission is also not addressed
in the agreement. The Rescue Agreement does provide
that the launching state must bear the costs for the recov-
ery of a craft that crashes into another states territory.
However, the agreement makes no mention of the cost of
the rescue of astronauts.

6 References
[1] United Nations Oce for Outer Space Aairs/Treaty Sig-
natures

[2] Dunn, Marcia. Shuttle Rescue: Four Astronauts Train

for the Unthinkable. Retrieved 28 April 2008.

7 External links
Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return
of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched
into Outer Space (Full Text)
 3

8 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1 Text
Rescue Agreement Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_Agreement?oldid=779227737 Contributors: Nknight, Zaroblue05,
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8.2 Images
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