Regulation of Suborbital Commercial Flights

In recent years, many companies use newly developed suborbital vehicles to carry out suborbital commercial flights for the purpose of tourism. The commercial development momentum of suborbital flights becomes more and more fierce. Because the delimitation between airspace and outer space is problematic, the legal status of suborbital flights becomes highly controversial. There is no special international regulation on suborbital commercial flights, whether the present aviation convention and space convention areapplicable and how to apply them to suborbital commercial flights becomes an important issue. Meanwhile, represented by the United States and the European Union, many countries and regions enacted some special legal rules of suborbital commercial flights to regulate the suborbital commercial flights activities and promote its development with domestic law. Combining with the relevant international law and domestic law, this thesis analyzes the jurisdiction of the suborbital commercial flights and the liability issues, aims at presenting the current situation of legal regulation of the suborbital commercial flights systematically and puts forward some suggestions to promote the development of suborbital commercial flights and establishment of relevant legal regime in China.