Luxembourg's parliament voted to pass an asteroid mining law, which gives companies ownership of what they extract from celestial bodies. The European country has been working on the bill since 2016, and was originally going to bring it into force early this year. It took a little longer to understand the situation, but in the end the law received unanimous support and should come into force on August 1 this year.
Luxembourg's law is very similar to the one that President Obama signed in 2015 - it gives mining companies the right to mine. In adopting such laws, both countries took advantage of a loophole in the UN Outer Space Treaty, which states that nations cannot claim ownership of the moon and other celestial bodies, restricting the rights of other countries. Both laws do not give companies the right to own asteroids; space miners will only have ownership of the minerals they extract, and only after they have been extracted.
However, unlike the American version, the European law does not require the main partners of a company to be based in Luxembourg in order to benefit from its protection - they just need to have an office in the country. However, any corporation interested in operating space objects from the territory of the Grand Duchy must obtain written permission from the country and must not have major shareholders who take money from terrorist groups.
This step did not leave the legal field of a tiny but wealthy European nation. At one time, Luxembourg made its first big bet in 1985, when it supported Europe's first private satellite operator, which eventually became the largest in the world. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons that the country has one of the highest GDP per capita in the world.
In addition, the Grand Duchy has been investing in asteroid mining for years, teaming up with Deep Space Industries to create an experimental spacecraft designed to test its own mining technologies. Of course, it may take several decades before someone starts to mine minerals from asteroids, but with a law that makes it clear what place is reserved for space miners, Luxembourg is securing its future in this industry.