An interdisciplinary scientific organization promoting worldwide research to develop and utilize space vehicles, rockets, and balloons. It was established in 1958 by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) to continue the cooperative programmes in satellite and rocket research that had begun during the International Geophysical Year of 1957–8. The ICSU resolution stated that COSPAR would provide a means by which the international scientific community could ‘exploit the possibilities of satellites and space probes of all kinds for scientific purposes, and exchange the resulting data on a cooperative basis’.