Our mission
The ANGELS project aims to consolidate legal and regulatory information in one well-designed, visually-appealing, easy-to-use website.
It aims to offer information that is practical, useful and relevant to Australian space industry participants, with the goal of helping those seeking to understand the basic legal and regulatory requirements applicable to all space-specific aspects of their activities.
The ‘Australian Navigational Guide Explaining Laws for Space’ is a joint initiative by Adelaide Law School at the University of Adelaide, and International Aerospace Law and Policy Group (IALPG).
It was initiated on the basis of a proposal by Duncan Blake, Special Counsel – Space Law at IALPG, in first semester 2019 with funding from the Law Foundation of South Australia.
Our contributors
Six undergraduate law students, under direction from Duncan, undertook research about the legal needs of entrepreneurs in the Australian space industry.
This was a course for credit with the Clinical Legal Education Program (specifically, the Entrepreneur and Venture Advice Clinic, or ‘EVAC’).
Among other things, that research involved an intense tour to six Australian cities to meet with over 30 Australian space entrepreneurs and to deliver presentations in each city on the basics of several legal topics relevant to space activities in or from Australia. That model will continue to be used to expand the website – especially the scope of the legal topics it covers, and in response to requests from users.
The original six undergraduate students who initially developed content for the website are:
- Claudia Floreani
- Nicholas Garbas
- Alice Osborne
- Brian Lian
- Chloe Evans
- Peter Dalrymple
A Board of Directors who provided oversight and direction of the project are:
- Professor Melissa de Zwart, Dean of Adelaide Law School
- Professor Dale Stephens, Adelaide Law School
- Joseph Wheeler, Principal and Founder, International Aerospace Law and Policy Group (IALPG)
We are grateful also for the contributions of the following people:
- Dr Beth Nosworthy, Director of the Entrepreneur and Venture Advice Clinic, who provided direction and guidance on academic aspects of the project
- Martin Read, Deloitte Australia, who introduced students to the basics of ‘User Experience’
- Scott Schneider at Adelaide law firm, Jones Harley Toole, Dr Stacey Henderson, Lecturer at Adelaide Law School and Joel Lisk, PhD candidate at Adelaide Law School, who all provided guidance to the students on legal sources for research, as well as assisting with some administration
- Michael Davis AO, Australia space law pioneer and former Chair of the Space Industry Association of Australia, for his support
- The website development firm, atomix, who have gone above and beyond the original brief to deliver a resource for the benefit of the Australian space industry
Entrepreneurs involved
In order to understand the legal and regulatory needs of our users, we met with more than 30 space entrepreneurs around Australia. We are grateful for the insights that they provided.
This website has been developed with their insights, to provide practical legal information relevant to the space activities of Australian entrepreneurs, presented in a format that provides them with the optimum user experience.
Our presentations in each city were generously hosted by a variety of institutions, and catering was funded by the Space Industry Association of Australia (SIAA).
Those entrepreneurs and institutions are:
Adelaide
- Fleet Space
- Myriota
- Silentium Defence
- Inovor Technologies
- Neumann Space
- Ripple Aerospace
- Wright Technologies
- Southern Launch
Perth
The ANGELS Project welcomes feedback, including requests for additional content, via the form at the bottom of this page.