Space Industry Act 2018

Destroying, damaging or endangering safety of spacecraft

2 (1) It is an offence for a person unlawfully and intentionally—

(a) to destroy a UK-launched spacecraft,

(b) to damage a UK-launched spacecraft in a way that renders it incapable of flight or is likely to endanger its safety in flight,

(c) to commit on board a UK-launched spacecraft in flight an act of violence that is likely to endanger the safety of the spacecraft or of a carrier aircraft by which it is being carried, or

(d) to commit on board a UK-launched carrier aircraft in flight an act of violence that is likely to endanger the safety of a spacecraft carried by it.

(2) It is also an offence for a person unlawfully and intentionally—

(a) to place on a UK-launched spacecraft, or to cause to be placed on such a spacecraft, a device or substance that is likely—

(i) to destroy the spacecraft or a carrier aircraft by which it is being carried, or

(ii) to damage the spacecraft or carrier aircraft in a way that renders it incapable of flight or is likely to endanger its safety in flight, or

(b) to place on a UK-launched carrier aircraft, or to cause to be placed on such an aircraft, a device or substance that is likely—

(i) to destroy a spacecraft carried by it, or

(ii) to damage such a spacecraft in a way that renders it incapable of flight or is likely to endanger its safety in flight.

(3) Sub-paragraphs (1)(a) and (b) and (2) apply where the UK-launched spacecraft or (in the case of sub-paragraph (2)(b)) the UK-launched carrier aircraft—

(a) is being prepared for launch,

(b) is in flight, or

(c) has completed a flight within the previous 24 hours.

(4) Sub-paragraph (2) does not limit the circumstances in which the commission of an act—

(a) may constitute an offence under sub-paragraph (1), or

(b) may constitute attempting or conspiring to commit, or aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring, or being art and part in, the commission of such an offence.

(5) In this paragraph “unlawfully”—

(a) in relation to the commission of an act in the United Kingdom, means so as (apart from this Act) to constitute an offence under the law of the part of the United Kingdom in which the act is committed;

(b) in relation to the commission of an act outside the United Kingdom, means so that the commission of the act would (apart from this Act) have been an offence under the law in force in the place where the spacecraft in question was launched, or (as the case may be) was to be launched, if it had been committed in that place.