This article raises awareness of how countries can leverage space and space technologies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through concrete examples. Space science, technology and applications can support a range of pro-developmental activities, such as agricultural planning, biodiversity protection, tele-health and disaster management. United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) helps countries to use space technology in all of these areas, through capacity building and partnerships with government and private sector entities to expand access to space, especially for developing countries. This article also outlines the work of UNOOSA in promoting increased participation of women in the space sector and in STEM careers.

In this paper we discuss current challenges to the sustainability concept. This article focuses on seven dimensions of the concept. These dimensions are crucial for understanding sustainability. Even today, the literature contains basic misunderstandings about these seven dimensions. This article sketches such fallacies in the context of global and planetary sustainability. The sustainability concept has been criticized as a content-empty ‘fuzzy notion’ or non-committal ‘all-purpose glue’. This article thus has a critical intention of reflecting the sustainability concept accurately. The aim is to contribute a better understanding of the concept.

The new forms of the use of outer space, such as space resources activities, not only will provide a vital contribution to research and industry, but could also entail a negative impact to the space environment. The present article aims at discussing from a legal perspective crucial problems such as how we shall ensure that the entities active in the area of space resources take environmental concerns into account, how we shall ensure that they utilize the best possible and least invasive technology and whether they should restore the ‘mining’ area when finishing their tasks.

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.

Although the concept of sustainable development is widely used as a guiding principle, there is much less consensus on its normative foundation and ethical implications. Since the 1880s, when social tensions threatened to tear apart European societies during the Industrial Revolution, Catholic social teaching (CST) has served as a sound basis for dialogue for many political leaders regardless of national or religious affiliation. This article examines how Pope Francis’ present-day CST might foster a cross-cultural debate on the ethics of economic growth, social and ecological justice and civil participation on Planet Earth as well as in outer space.

The politics of the United Nations aims at sustainable development (i.e., development that can continue with future generations). Andreas Losch has recently proposed to expand our current notion of sustainability to what he calls ‘planetary sustainability’, and he has urged an ethics of planetary sustainability. This comment article discusses these proposals. The proposed conceptual change is assessed, drawing on desiderata suggested by Carnap. To the extent to which the current notion of sustainability has excluded consideration of outer space, we gain in simplicity. To the extent to which it has been unclear about this issue, we gain in exactness. The proposed concept is fruitful because it points to important considerations, in particular if there are extra-terrestrial beings that share moral status with human beings. But to some extent this fruitfulness requires a clear deviation from the anthropocentric outlook of our current notion of sustainability, and costs regarding similarity arise. As far as an ethics of sustainability is concerned, we certainly need to address ethical issues that arise in relation to outer space. However, the notion of planetary sustainability is not likely to figure prominently in related thoughts because the notion of sustainability is not a key concept in known ethical theories.

Sustainable access to outer space is increasingly threatened by growing orbital clouds of satellites and debris. A boom in competitively priced commercial rocket launches has lowered prices, prompting satellite operators to begin deploying thousands of satellites. Six decades ago, ‘hard law’ international treaties established governance for outer space designed for the few governmental space programmes. Today, non-governmental commercial entities are operating under voluntary ‘soft law’ rules of the road that expose the deficiencies of the original treaties to empower regulatory supervision of the expanding commercial orbital presence. This paper suggests how a ‘sustainable’ system of governance, required for sustainable space access and exploration, may be promoted by increasing the costs of non-compliance.