Aug. 16

The New Zealand government is seeking public feedback on how to best manage space rocket activity and its environmental impacts, Environment Minister Nick Smith said on Wednesday.

"Space rocket launches are a new and exciting industry for New Zealand, which the government wants to help develop in a safe and responsible way," Smith said in a statement.

These latest proposals are about further assisting this technologically advanced industry to grow while ensuring New Zealand maintains high environmental standards, Smith said.

The environmental issue from space vehicle launches is that before it reaches orbit, some material is jettisoned and falls back to earth, and this material may burn up in the atmosphere but some may land in the waters of New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the Extended Continental Shelf (ECS), sink and deposit on the seabed, he said.

The impacts of this have been assessed as small, and the proposal is that this be a permitted activity for all ocean area to the north, east and south of New Zealand, subject to a standard set of conditions, which limit the number of launches to 100, require a 14-day public notification of the launch and flight path, and post-launch reports on the activity, said the minister.

"We welcome feedback on these pragmatic proposals to extend the area of the oceans in which there might be space rocket debris," he said, adding that there have already been rocket launches from the Mahia Peninsula on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, and the government wants to provide a practical regulatory regime in which the industry can continue to grow.