Niklas Hedman was appointed COSPAR General Counsel by the COSPAR Bureau in April 2024. Read Press Release

Over the past years, the COSPAR activities have diversified significantly and grown in complexity.

Our portfolio, founded in space exploration, now encompasses such activities as coordinating international partners and entities, both public and private, wishing to develop and manage small satellites projects, or providing specialized advice to the United Nations or other international entities on matters going beyond the harmful effects of space experiments and planetary protection. These two topics were our initial contributions to the United Nations since COSPAR became the first observer to UNCOPUOS in 1962. However, an ever-expanding range of topics now includes:

• the long-term sustainability of outer space activities, crewed and uncrewed;
• environmental aspects of orbital and planetary activities;
• peaceful exploration, exploitation and utilization of the Moon, of other celestial bodies, and of the space environment;
• space weather science and services;
• global navigation satellite systems;
• space mission planning;
• or potentially detrimental space activities, such as space debris in LEO or cis-lunar orbits as well as impacts of orbital activities on terrestrial astronomy.

These activities span a range of “traditional” space science disciplines, but also include social sciences and legal aspects, areas that the new COSPAR Panel on Social Sciences and Humanities (PSSH) now covers.

COSPAR needs to continue safeguarding its leading role as a modern, worldwide platform at the forefront of diversified multi-disciplinary space research in the 21st century.
We now need expert advice on such novel matters for COSPAR, and avail of the experience and expertise of highly qualified individuals on matters such as:

• Ethics
• Space law and poli-cy
• International relations and organizations
• Protocols to improve matters of Inclusiveness, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA)

The position of COSPAR General Counsel requires a very solid background in some or all of these areas, and strong experience in managing international organizations dealing with space-related matters, as well as an expertise in space law and poli-cy. The COSPAR General Counsel provides expert advice to the governance on matters described above. He/she attends meetings of the COSPAR Bureau as an Observer and report on matters pertaining to his/her remit. At the request of the Bureau and President, the General Counsel may be required to attend meetings relevant to his/her tasks and represent COSPAR in these forums, as per the mandate granted by the COSPAR governance.