After years of steady, respectable growth, the space industry appears to be on the cusp of a new era of rapid expansion in both capabilities and customers. Startup companies are experimenting with novel approaches for building and deploying constellations of spacecraft and delivering services to their customers in new ways. Long-established space operators are refreshing their offerings as well, taking advantage of the latest technology to offer increasingly powerful products at more affordable prices.

The global reach of satellites, which has long been one of the space industry’s defining characteristics, is attracting interest and investment from other industries, particularly those whose continued growth may depend on connecting the billions of people on the planet who currently are without access to modern communications. For those customers who are already a part of the modern, networked world, there is the prospect of seeing that world in a new way as several space companies vie to provide transportation into space and a new view of the world in which we live. The way we go about our daily lives is going to undergo many changes in next several years, and the skilled professionals who constitute the space industry are poised to take a leading role in making those changes a reality.

The global space industry appears to be going through a period of reinvention, as evidenced by a variety of changes in the way it conducts operations. Efforts to reuse launch vehicles are beginning to bear fruit, and more efficient launch vehicles are being designed and developed, all of which may help to bring launch costs down. The satellite industry is seeing rapid growth in the number of small satellites, as vast constellations consisting of hundreds of satellites for Earth observation and telecommunications are being ordered and built. Large satellites are taking advantage of more efficient propulsion systems that may help increase their usable lifespan. These are but a few examples of how the industry is making space more affordable and consequently more accessible to a broad swath of public agencies, industries, and individuals

Although it is often apparent when changes are on the horizon, their exact nature can be difficult to discern. For the space industry, a clearer picture of the impending changes began to form in 2016. These include the use of cheaper spacecraft in larger numbers, lower-cost launches, the democratization of space, and the exploration of new space-related industries that go beyond the acquisition and transmission of data.

Some of these changes were suggested by dramatic events. A nation that was once the foremost space launch provider fell to nearly half its typical launch rate in 2016 and suffered losses in infrastructure reliability and talent. Launch companies that were once considered premiere space industry mainstays endured job and business losses. Other changes, while no less
significant, unfolded more subtly. Space products and services have become increasingly important to non-space businesses, prompting growth in data products enabled by smaller satellites and less demand for large-scale infrastructure. The ways in which space products and services are produced and used are changing, and the industry is adjusting accordingly.

Like the years preceding it, 2017 was full of change for the global space industry. The global space economy grew, but the primary cause was not an increase in government spending. Instead, the commercial sectors of the global space economy continued to expand both in size and importance. This contrast is most clearly illustrated by the United States, where government spending declined slightly but the industry was the most active in the world according to a variety of metrics.

The number of smaller, cheaper, commercial spacecraft that were deployed increased substantially. Orbital launch rates were just short of the two-decade high point achieved in 2014. This was achieved despite the fact that one of the oldest and largest spacefaring nations continued performing well below historic rates. At the same time, a single company made significant
contributions to the number of spacecraft deployed during 2017. This infrastructure enabled the creation of more products and services—sometimes in ways that were never originally intended.