The space industry is blasting AI into orbit, promising to improve everything from the tracking and maneuvering of thousands of satellites to the construction of moon-exploring robots.

Despite this enormous potential, a giant regulatory gap exists.  While Europe’s new AI Act is seen as a comprehensive regulation, it fails to address AI in space. Other AI and space leaders such as the US and China also have not yet adopted a legal framework governing the technology in outer space.

This regulatory gap leaves room for too much uncertainty — just as the space sector is set to boom. By 2040, it could become the next trillion-dollar industry, turning it from what one official calls a “hobby shop” to center stage.

Cosmic data and the insight extracted by AI could transform a broad range of businesses. Farmers will use it to monitor the growth of the crops. Retailers will depend on it to optimize production and sales. As pointed out by Harvard researchers, all companies should develop a space strategy to harness such benefits.

Space AI promises to enhance the telecommunications industry. Satellite constellations can now offer fast internet connection anywhere in the world, including rural and unconnected areas. AI helps cut costs and latency by enabling network optimization, predictive maintenance, and energy efficiency, according to the RAND Corporation.

AI cosmic-derived insights will also become crucial to bolstering national security. They can map illegal activities to recognize specific objectives or battlefield targets. Currently, intelligence specialists need to analyze vast quantities of satellite data. AI will speed up this process, allowing analysts to focus on the big picture.

Until recently, satellite data could only be analyzed from Earth. Downlinks are slow and costly. Images obtained from satellites orbiting Earth often require days to bring to Earth, only to be rendered useless by a dense cloud covering the area of interest. AI can help solve these costly problems, processing data in space before transmission and zeroing in on crucial data for specific applications.

Perhaps the most important impact will be on access to space. AI can help make future unmanned cosmic missions autonomous, allowing spaceships to react by themselves to ward off potential crashes with asteroids. AI-powered robots could build future moon bases.

But AI cosmic autonomy raises questions about what kind of legal standards should be applied — stricter or more flexible in comparison to terrestrial ones. Who is at fault when two or more AI-powered autonomous satellites collide?

Space activities remain governed by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which has been expanded since then with liability and registration conventions. However, they do not address questions specific to the integration of AI in outer space. Little political will exists to negotiate a new cosmic treaty. The most significant effort in recent years is the Artemis Accords, a set of bilateral agreements under US leadership.

The United Nations Committee on Peaceful Use of Outer Space should develop a set of guidelines to address the regulatory gap for AI in space. AI will revolutionize space exploration. Regulators have no time to waste to help the new technology blast off — safely.

Giovanni Tricco is a PhD candidate in the governance of AI in outer space activities at the University of Bologna and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is co-leading the Research Group on AI and Space Law of the Space Law and Policy Project Group at the Space Generation Advisory Council.

George Leaua is a program associate at the Space Policy Institute and the Institute for International Science & Technology Policy at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, and a researcher at the Swiss Institute for Alternative Thinking. Previously, he worked as a project manager for G-SPACE, Inc., enabling the business development and government relations projects of the AI-powered space start-up.

Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.

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