Asgardia, the Self-Declared Space Nation: Vote, Satellite and Status

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Originally published 2017-06-19.

The World’s First Trans-national Space Community Is Real

Image: Asgardia / Facebook.

Asgardia is a self-declared "space nation" founded in 2016 by Russian scientist and businessman Igor Ashurbeyli. Anyone with an internet connection could sign up as a citizen, and on 18 June 2017 its online members voted to adopt a constitution, along with a flag, emblem and anthem. Months later it put a small satellite into orbit carrying that constitution. What it has never become is a recognised country. This guide explains what Asgardia is, what the 2017 vote decided, and where the project stands.

How Asgardia began

Ashurbeyli announced the project at a press conference in Paris on 12 October 2016. He had earlier founded the Asgardia Independent Research Center in 2013, and he pitched Asgardia as a trans-national community for people of every country and ethnicity, united by the goal of establishing a human presence in space. Its official name is the Space Kingdom of Asgardia, borrowed from Asgard, the realm of the gods in Norse mythology. Its administrative centre is in Vienna.

The launch caught the public mood. More than 100,000 people applied in under two days, and about half a million had signed up within three weeks.

Who the "citizens" were

Registration was free and took a few minutes online, so the early numbers were inflated by curious and casual sign-ups. When Asgardia asked people to verify their accounts and accept the draft constitution, the total fell to about 210,000 by June 2017, drawn from some 200 countries. By early 2019 the project reported more than 290,000 citizens and over a million followers.

Asgardia later introduced a paid tier of "residents", who pay a fee of 100 euros. Citizenship of Asgardia does not replace anyone's real nationality, carries no passport that other countries accept, and gives no right to live anywhere, on Earth or off it.

The Unity Day vote of June 2017

Asgardia calls 18 June its Unity Day. On that date in 2017, verified members could vote online over 24 hours on the founding documents: a declaration, a constitution and national symbols, including a flag, insignia and anthem. The constitution was adopted that day and came into force on 9 September 2017.

It set out a structure that resembles a real state. Ashurbeyli would serve as Head of Nation for five years, and he was formally inaugurated in June 2018. A 150-member parliament, a government of 12 ministers and a judiciary were set up, with elections held online. Citizens could also petition any official, including the Head of Nation, once a petition gathered enough signatures.

Asgardia-1: a satellite as "territory"

The project's boldest step was its satellite. Asgardia-1, a two-unit CubeSat weighing 2.8 kg, launched on 12 November 2017 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia aboard an Orbital ATK Antares rocket. It rode inside a Cygnus cargo ship that first resupplied the International Space Station before releasing it into a higher orbit.

The CubeSat carried the constitution, the national symbols and small files chosen by citizens, stored on a 512 GB memory. Ashurbeyli said it would take citizens into space "in virtual form, at first", and Asgardia presented it as the nation's first territory. It stayed in orbit for almost five years before re-entering the atmosphere on 12 September 2022.

Is Asgardia a real country?

No. Asgardia is not recognised by any state or by the United Nations, though it says it hopes to apply for UN membership. Legal scholars point to several obstacles:

  • No territory. International law usually expects a state to have a defined territory, a permanent population and a government. A small satellite is not generally accepted as territory.
  • The Outer Space Treaty. The 1967 treaty bars national claims of sovereignty over outer space, the Moon and other celestial bodies.
  • US jurisdiction. Asgardia-1 was built and launched by US companies on a NASA-funded mission, so under space law it fell under the responsibility of the United States, not Asgardia.

Critics also raised questions about storing citizens' personal data and about the lack of a clear plan to pay for anything as ambitious as a crewed station. Supporters see it differently: as a global community and a thought experiment about how humanity might govern itself beyond Earth.

A calendar of 13 equal months

One of Asgardia's more appealing ideas is its calendar. As described in 2017, it has 13 months of 28 days each, exactly four weeks, so every month starts on the same weekday and any date falls on the same day of the week every year. The extra month, named Asgard, sits between June and July, and a spare Year Day closes the year. Its first holidays were Asgardia's birthday on 12 October, Year Day on 31 December, and Unity Day on 18 June.

The design is not new. It closely resembles 13-month calendar reforms proposed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a reminder of how often reformers have tried to tidy up the irregular Gregorian calendar.

Where Asgardia stands now

Since the 2017 vote, Asgardia has held online parliamentary sessions, approved a national currency act on paper, run mayoral elections for virtual cities and staged forums in Europe. It has spoken of a permanent settlement on the Moon by 2043. Its satellite has burned up, and it remains, in practice, an international membership organisation with the trappings of a state.

For anyone thinking of joining, the practical takeaway is simple: signing up makes you part of an online community with an unusual vision, not the holder of a new nationality. For everyone else, Asgardia is a lively case study in how hard it is to create a nation in an era when space itself cannot be claimed.

(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)

Sources: Wikipedia: Asgardia; Engadget, November 2017; Asgardia official site; Asgardia on Twitter/X; original report by RT and New Atlas.

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