LAUSR

Non-technical abstract Sixty years of space activities have led to ongoing scientific and technological progress. Space 4.0 reflects the rapid changes of the space community. Growing interest in space activities leads to increasing participation of numerous new actors in this field. Governments, private actors and international organizations are eager to fill existing gaps in securing global society's needs. The European Space Agency's Space 4.0 concept is designed to host a new era of space activities, aiming to resolve global challenges and to serve society. Space 4.0 developments are highly important, but are taking place in an extremely complex net of legal, regulatory and political considerations. This paper focuses on the legal challenges raised by the new era of Space 4.0 in a sustainability context. Technical abstract This paper spotlights the legal challenges related to the current age of space activities. After a cursory overview of the evolution of space activities in the different preceding eras, it provides some insight into the manifold interactions between the current era of Industry 4.0 and space activities in general. The following section gives an overview of the general legal norms applicable to space activities, mainly the five UN Treaties governing the activities of States in the exploration and use of outer space as adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. A core section then deals with legal challenges in the era of Space 4.0 relating specifically to environmental considerations in that era, which merit particular attention, namely the space debris issues. While taking the classical UN Outer Space Treaty system as a starting point, the legal appreciation of the environmental impact of space activities will be discussed in the light of the developing international environmental law context, including the direct relevance of general environmental law and policy. A concluding section provides some considerations concerning possible future developments.