When you operate satellites and a ground station, as the TU Delft does, you need to comply with all the legal and regulatory aspects, which are in place. The procedure to show this compliance is done in an external audit.
At the end of 2018, such a (repeat) supervision audit on TU Delft (auditee) took place on request of Radio Communications Agency (Agentschap Telecom, AT) as audit client and conducted by Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) and University of Leiden (UL) as audit team within the framework of the “Space Activities Act” (Wet ruimtevaartactiviteiten or Wra). NLR covered the fields of engineering and reviewed the financial status of the TU Delft. University of Leiden (UL) covered the field of insurance.
The Wra came into force on 1 January 2008. This Act regulates space activities falling under Dutch jurisdiction, and was extended by order in Council to unguided satellites per 1 July 2015. TU Delft, among the first three that were certified (TU Delft, ISIS and AMSAT-NL), was granted a licence for the operations of unguided space objects in outer space on 31 March 2016 by AT.
On May 23rd 2019, positive advice on the continuation of this licence was given by NLR and University of Leiden to Agentschap Telecom.
