| Summary/Abstract |
India’s space program has traversed its journey from fishing hamlet—Thumba—to the Red Planet—Mars—with governmental support. Today, the Indian government seeks to realize the technological and financial potential of the private sector and is looking to share its financial burden with them. So long as space activities were completely in the governmental domain, there was not a preference for national space legislation. However, with private actor participation, it cannot be ignored, because even though the activities are private, liability is always public. On the basis of international space law, states bear international responsibility for all their space activities, including activities of non-governmental entities, which explicitly require authorization and supervision from states. There is already a political will in India and it is expected that national space legislation will be another accomplishment for the Indian space program, opening up participation by private players.
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