China has made great achievements in space activities in recent years. While emphasizing the principle of self-independence, China also acknowledges the importance of space cooperation. As early as 2001, China indicated its interest in joining the International Space Station. However, no substantive progress has been made concerning China’s participation thus far. This may be a result of political and economic, rather than legal and technical, considerations. There is no doubt that China’s participation shall contribute to the sustainable development of the ISS. China’s participation could also offer an excellent opportunity to reexamine the 1998 framework and clarify or improve certain provisions that exist in the current regime. While technologically ready for participation, China should start considering possible legal issues that may arise from its participation in the ISS project. This article takes up the challenging task of identifying potential legal issues that may arise in the course of China’s participation in the ISS and offers suggestions for a future cooperative legal framework regarding the ISS.

The International Space Station (ISS) orbits the Earth within the inner radiation belt, where high-energy protons are produced by collisions of cosmic rays to the upper atmosphere. About 6 astronauts stay in the ISS for a long period, and it should be important to monitor and assess the radiation environment in the ISS. The tissue equivalent proportional counter (TEPC) is an instrument to measure the impact of radiation on the human tissue. KASI is developing a TEPC as a candidate payload of the ISS. Before the detailed design of the TEPC, we performed simulations to test whether our conceptual design of the TEPC will work propertly in the ISS and to predict its performance. The simulations estimated that the TEPC will measure the dose equivalent of about 1:1 mSv during a day in the ISS, which is consistent with previous measurements.

Tissue equivalent proportional counter (TEPC) can measure the Linear Energy Transfer (LET) spectrum and calculate the equivalent dose for the complicated radiation field in space. In this paper, we developed and characterized a TEPC for radiation monitoring in International Space Station (ISS). The prototype TEPC which can simulate a 2 μm of the site diameter for micro-dosimetry has been tested with a standard alpha source (241Am, 5.5 MeV). Also, the calibration of the TEPC was performed by the 252Cf neutron standard source in Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS). The determined calibration factor was kf = 3.59×10-7 mSv/R.