Space Contracts, Insurance and Dispute Settlement: Plus ça Change?

This contribution revisits the first substantive space law article in Air and Space Law, published in 1993, about a dispute between the US launch provider Martin Marietta Corp. and the satellite operator INTELSAT, by placing it in today’s context and discussing the recent loss of a satellite involving a Malaysian satellite operator, Measat, its insurers, and the US satellite manufacturer Boeing. Both cases involve the interpretation of contracts, insurance coverage and dispute settlement. The article concludes that not much has changed since the 1990s, and the recommendations made then are still valid today.