Criteria Minimizing Legal and Financial Risks In Airspace Businesses

This article provides a broad description of the risks and liability aspects related to new Satellite Communications Technologies, not in terms of the value of aerospace assets, but rather of their use, that is of their capacity to generate sufficient cash flows to remunerate the subjects involved in the various phases of putting satellites into orbit. Risk Management should be employed throughout the life cycle of a project, much the way cost, schedule and content are managed. Risk, therefore, becomes the main dimension of project management treated equally as important as cost and schedule. The Outer Space Treaties, while of academic interest, have not been completely applied to commercial space ventures and the disputes that naturally arise out of those ventures. Disputes involving insurance coverage, property damage, cross-waivers of liability, subrogation, product liability, contractual disclaimers and choice of law have been resolved by the Courts using traditional legal principles that are often "hundred of years old". The results have been mixed at best. Insurers, manufacturers and operators are still faced with a lack of uniformity and the unpredictability of having their unique and complex disputes resolved by archaic legal principles and groups outside the industry.