Space Minister Judith Collins. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The government is setting out to launch at least one satellite for its own use.
New Zealand currently relies almost entirely on space assets owned by other countries or companies.
Its new strategy for space and advanced aviation, out Tuesday, says a national satellite launch mission will be set up by 2030.
It would "establish a national mission through the development, manufacture, launch and operation of one or more sovereign satellites," said the short strategy document.
The data collected for the government would help in monitoring the oceans, or space itself.
"Satellites deliver a wide range of essential services that underpin daily life in New Zealand. Improving our capability to develop, access and use space technologies will deliver benefits... and demonstrate the capability of our space and advanced aviation sectors to the world."
The strategy also promises to bring in the "world's best regulatory regimes" for space and advanced aviation by the end of next year, to try to double the industry's size to more than $3 billion annually.
This included removing a requirement for companies to go through a whole new approvals process each time they tweaked their technology, Space Minister Judith Collins said in a statement.
"We're introducing a light-touch regulatory approach that will significantly free up innovators to test their technology and ideas," she said.
It would also include a "sandbox" of areas of restricted airspace for testing new aviation tech, Transport Minister Simeon Brown said.
"This provides innovators with much improved flexibility."
The increasing risks of conflict in space, as the US builds an alliance of partners in opposition to China and Russia, crop up among the strategy's four principles.
"Alongside developing our own space capabilities, we will expand operational space cooperation with our international defence and security partners to support New Zealand's national security and contribute effectively to collective security efforts," the document said.
"The potential for conflict in space creates additional risks to New Zealand's interests, including the potential for disruption to critical national infrastructure that needs to be understood and managed."
Judith Collins posted an AI generated picture of herself on Instagram earlier this month. Photo: Supplied / screenshot
Having sovereign space assets would enhance national security, it said.
The other principles were around promoting responsible, safe and sustainable use of space.
The regulatory relaxation was signalled in National's manifesto last year.
The strategy does not directly mention National's promise to relax the rules under which companies must get ministerial approval for each individual launch, in a process where the spy agencies assessed the payload - often a satellite - each rocket carried. It would instead bring in a "launch criteria".
However, the strategy does promise to amend the law - the Outer Space and High-altitude Activities Act - to improve "the effectiveness of space and high-altitude regulation".
New Zealand would also look at getting "external" regulatory advice, it said.
RNZ has asked for more details of what that meant.
Protecting 'national interests'
New Zealand's space regulations have previously borrowed from the United States, as well as instituting a special technology agreement with the US in 2016 that allows for easier transfer of space tech here.
Collins said in the strategy document that the regulations would protect "our national interests, including national security and New Zealand's foreign policy interests".
New Zealand is fourth-equal for rocket launches in the world, though they have all been with private NZ-US company Rocket Lab, from Mahia, and depend on private commercial technology more than government tech. Ground-based space tech owned by a US company was installed at Naseby.
Efforts by an iwi-Crown joint venture to build launchpads at Kaitorete Spit near Christchurch have stuttered, but received a recent fillip when a US firm signed with the local Dawn Aerospace to test cameras on an unmanned high-altitude plane.
On Monday, protesters at the aerospace summit in Christchurch and outside the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in Wellington called on New Zealand to resist space development linked to the military or US national security interests.
The new strategy mentioned security and defence aerospace technologies alongside civilian ones, as useful (many can be used for either - so-called 'dual use').
Collins said in May that New Zealand welcomed a new Pentagon strategy that aimed to increasingly integrate commercial space companies into its defence operations that primarily advance its own national security interests.
New Zealand was "interested to know how New Zealand's commercial space providers can support this approach", Collins said.
