SECTION 8 – RELEASE OF SCIENTIFIC DATA
- The Signatories retain the right to communicate and release information to the public regarding their own activities. The Signatories intend to coordinate with each other in advance regarding the public release of information that relates to the other Signatories’ activities under these Accords in order to provide appropriate protection for any proprietary and/or export-controlled information.
- The Signatories are committed to the open sharing of scientific data. The Signatories plan to make the scientific results obtained from cooperative activities under these Accords available to the public and the international scientific community, as appropriate, in a timely manner.
- The commitment to openly share scientific data is not intended to apply to private sector operations unless such operations are being conducted on behalf of a Signatory to the Accords.
SECTION 9 – PRESERVING OUTER SPACE HERITAGE
- The Signatories intend to preserve outer space heritage, which they consider to comprise historically significant human or robotic landing sites, artifacts, spacecraft, and other evidence of activity on celestial bodies in accordance with mutually developed standards and practices.
- The Signatories intend to use their experience under the Accords to contribute to multilateral efforts to further develop international practices and rules applicable to preserving outer space heritage.
SECTION 10 – SPACE RESOURCES
- The Signatories note that the utilization of space resources can benefit humankind by providing critical support for safe and sustainable operations.
- The Signatories emphasize that the extraction and utilization of space resources, including any recovery from the surface or subsurface of the Moon, Mars, comets, or asteroids, should be executed in a manner that complies with the Outer Space Treaty and in support of safe and sustainable space activities. The Signatories affirm that the extraction of space resources does not inherently constitute national appropriation under Article II of the Outer Space Treaty, and that contracts and other legal instruments relating to space resources should be consistent with that Treaty.
- The Signatories commit to informing the Secretary-General of the United Nations as well as the public and the international scientific community of their space resource extraction activities in accordance with the Outer Space Treaty.
4
