Maximizing International Space Cooperation (MIS) course

Duration
3 days
Start Date
16 Nov 2026
Enrol
About the Course

International cooperation is vital for space exploration and use for reasons that are deeply interconnected:

  • Cost and resource sharing: Space missions are extraordinarily expensive. Pooling funding, infrastructure, and expertise lets nations achieve things none could afford alone.
  • Complementary expertise and technology: Different countries excel in different areas — propulsion, life support, robotics, launch capability, remote sensing. Collaboration enables space missions draw on the best available knowledge pool, skillset and industrial capacity rather than duplicating effort.
  • Shared risk: Space exploration is inherently risky and uncertain. Distributing the technical and financial risk across partners makes ambitious missions more feasible.
  • Global commons and shared benefit: Space is treated under international law as a global commons — not subject to national appropriation. Cooperation reflects and reinforces this idea.
  • Expanding access: Cooperation gives nations without independent space programs — pathways to participate in and benefit from space science, whether through joint missions, satellite hosting, or data-sharing agreements.
  • Addressing global challenges: Many applications of space technology — climate monitoring, disaster response, weather forecasting, navigation, communications — require coordinated, often real-time data-sharing across borders to be effective.
  • Diplomatic and peacebuilding value: Joint space programs have historically served as a form of ‘soft power’ and trust-building even between geopolitical rivals. Space cooperation offers a channel for dialogue when diplomatic avenues are strained.
  • Setting norms and avoiding conflict: As more state and private actors enter space, cooperation helps establish shared rules of the road, reducing the risk of the domain becoming a zone of unregulated competition or conflict.
  • Safety and sustainability of space itself: Issues like orbital debris, spectrum allocation, and traffic management in increasingly crowded orbits require coordinated international standards and practices — no single nation can manage these unilaterally.

The Maximising International Space Cooperation (MIS) course is designed to equip participants with the knowledge and practical skills needed to understand, develop, negotiate, and implement effective international space cooperation initiatives. The course examines the legal, financial, technical, diplomatic and strategic dimensions of international cooperation in/through outer space.

Course Highlights

  • Legal Foundations of Space Cooperation 
  • Funding & Cost-Sharing Architectures 
  • Technical Interoperability Standards 
  • Repercussions of Export Control Regimes
  • Diplomacy During Geopolitical Rupture 
  • Role of Culture in Negotiating Contracts
  • Rise of New Space Powers & Coalitions 
  • Artemis Accords & Competing Frameworks 
  • Data & Scientific Knowledge Sharing 

 

Who should attend?

  • Government officials

  • Council members

  • Representatives of space institutions

  • Representatives from government ministries and departments

  • Foreign service officers

  • Science/Space attachés

  • Organisation/Team Leads

  • Journalists

  • Young professionals

  • Students

 

Expected Outcomes

  • Develop the ability to spot opportunities and foresee challenges that arise in international space cooperation. 
  • Broaden your knowledge base so you can conceive, design, negotiate, and carry out initiatives for space cooperation.
  • Understand key legal, policy, financial, technical and geopolitical considerations in space programmes/projects

 

Other Benefits

  • Visit to the African Union Commission
  • Access relevant space policy, governance and diplomacy materials
  • Gain practical knowledge of initiating, sustaining and benefitting from international space cooperation
  • Earn a certificate
  • Become part of the ASLI Network

 

Facilitators

Dr. Susmita Mohanty is a spaceship designer and serial entrepreneur turned space diplomat. She is the only entrepreneur in the world to have co-founded space companies on three different continents: EARTH2ORBIT, Bangalore (2009-2021), LIQUIFER, Vienna (2004-ongoing) and MOONFRONT, San Francisco (2001-07). Prior to turning entrepreneur, she worked for the International Space Station (ISS) Program at Boeing in Huntington Beach and did a short stint at NASA Johnson in Houston where she worked on Shuttle-Mir missions. In October 2021, Susmita launched India’s first space think tank Spaceport SARABHAI (S2). Her podcast ‘Space for Diplomacy’ is produced by S2. The podcast is a conversation-driven exploration of how humanity is going to govern, cooperate, compete and coexist in outer space—and what that means for international relations on Earth. Susmita was a non-resident scholar at Carnegie India. She was a Member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council for Space Technologies from 2016-2024. She serves on Boards of the Centre for Space Futures, the Global Alliance for Earth-Space Governance, and the Space Centre at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Educated in India, France, and Sweden, Susmita holds multiple degrees including a PhD.

 
 
 
Course date

16-18 November 2026

 

Venue
Elilly International Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

 

Registration

To participate, please on the ‘Enrol’ menu at the top of this webpage. 

The registration fee covers the course tuition, training materials, break refreshments and lunch.

Participants will handle their visa applications, insurance, travel expenses, airport transfers, lodging and dinners. ASLI is available to offer advice where needed.

 

For further enquiries, please contact info@aslispace.org