Air and Space Policy > Belgian Air and Space Policy
Belgian Space Policy
Since the 1960s Belgium has been involved in European space policy. The country opted straight away to pursue its space efforts within a European and international framework in order to optimise its financial investment:
- Belgium played a major role in the creation of the European Space Agency (ESA) which was decided during the European Ministerial Space Conference in Brussels in 1973
- It has also entered into bilateral cooperation in the space field: with France (for the Earth observation programme SPOT), with Russia in MIRAS and SPICAM and with Argentina
- For Earth observation, different research programmes support the scientific exploitation of the satellite-data. .
Objectives
The exploitation of space comprises four main aspects: scientific, public, industrial and commercial.
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An ever-changing context
The international context in which the above-mentioned major European programmes were decided upon in the seventies and eighties changed radically at the beginning of the nineties due to various factors.
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