We expect a lot to happen immediately and in the near future related to space. We will see new and exciting space activities and products emerge that will aspire to conquer the market: asteroids from which to extract priceless metals, mega-constellations of satellites that will allow global access to the Internet, sunshades in orbit between the Earth and the Sun capable of reducing the temperature of the planet, day trips outside the atmosphere and habitable Martian cities… And also refueling and satellite services, cooperations for the exploration of the Moon, commercial space stations in low Earth orbit and, why not, beyond her…
Science fiction? Not in my opinion. As much as it is accompanied by inspiration, innovation, technological disruption, scientific discoveries… it’s just economics. We could also call it early science, a science in which space economics does indeed play a fundamental role. Actually, the missions I’ve mentioned are just a few examples of what will drive the space economy: according to recent major reports, that economy, which is worth about $500 billion today, will reach between $1 and $3 trillion. in the next two decades. If we continue with the same rapid increase that we have witnessed in recent years, the space economy of 2040 will encompass more than 100,000 space objects in multiple orbits (mostly due to mega-constellations), will include a permanent settlement on the Moon, with the presence of more and more participants, both governmental and non-governmental, and from a growing number of countries, and all with benefits for humanity that will grow exponentially on Earth.
However, let us return first of all to the definition of the spatial economy. According to the OECD, the space economy encompasses the full range of activities and uses of space resources that create value and benefits for humanity in the course of exploring, researching, understanding, managing and using space. Includes all agents, public and private, involved in the development, supply and use of space-related products and services: research and development, manufacturing and use of space infrastructures (ground stations, launch vehicles, satellites), applications derived from space (navigation instruments, satellite telephones, meteorological services, etc.), as well as the scientific knowledge resulting from these activities. The space economy goes well beyond the space sector in the strict sense, because it extends to the increasingly widespread and changing impacts (in quantity and quality) of products, services and knowledge derived from space. From agriculture to environmental protection, from natural resource management to transportation, there are many applications in other sectors that benefit from space data and technologies.
This is a recurring pattern we have seen in recent decades and since the beginning of the space age in 1957: some new technologies are developed, they mature, and then the corresponding business sector flourishes. However, the more space objects we launch, the more congested the space environment becomes. For that reason, all operators care about keeping the space environment safe, secure and sustainable in the long term, so that we can have a stable, predictable and reliable operating framework in orbit, particularly in low-Earth orbit. Let’s see the situation in figures.
Since 2019, the number of satellites in orbit has doubled year on year. If we analyze the website of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs and in particular the registration of objects launched into outer space (according to the Convention on the Registration of Objects that entered into force on September 15, 1967), the The figures are impressive: they have gone from 357 in 2019 to more than 1,900 in 2021, and they continue to increase. Because? What are the reasons for such an increase? Well, here are some, although not in order of importance. We have mentioned the maturity of certain technologies, which are stimulating more private initiatives for commercial purposes. Access to data and space infrastructures allows emerging and developing countries to enter this field as well. This is what we call democratization of space, because space is a global common good; therefore, a public good that must be preserved for future generations in accordance with the Outer Space Treaty, which mentions that space is the heritage of humanity and that its appropriation is not allowed.
Now let’s move on to mega constellations, that is, a group of satellites, up to several thousand, that operate together in a certain objective/area. The Starlink constellation stands out, developed and launched by SpaceX, a company created by Elon Musk: as of April 3, 2023, Starlink already had 3,866 operational satellites in orbit as part of the Starlink Generation 1 constellation, with a planned total of 11,943 approved satellites. by the competent US authority, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In addition, SpaceX also launched 351 Generation 2 satellites into orbit, as part of a total of 4,217 satellites so far. For Generation 2, the FCC approved a first batch of 7,500 satellites, out of a total of 29,988 to be approved in later stages. The big technological difference between Gen 1 and Gen 2 (the mass of the satellite goes from 260 to 1,130 kilos) is that in Gen 2 the satellites will connect directly to our personal mobile phone and no longer to terminals, so new applications will emerge. Starlink is not alone. OneWeb, a smaller constellation, has already launched, as of April 3, 2023, 620 satellites. China is preparing to do the same, and its SatNet consists of another 13,000 satellites. The world will be connected from anywhere when all those satellites are fully operational. Progress is also increasing in the field of cubesats, very small satellites often developed by groups of students or startups.
We are witnessing, then, a great impulse towards the democratization of space.
All of the above leads to an increase in the number of satellites and space debris; in particular, in low Earth orbit, an increasingly congested area. Space debris can come from different sources; These include unforeseen collisions between non-operational and active satellites (for example, the accident that occurred in 2009 when the operational Iridium 33 satellite collided with the non-operational Russian satellite Kosmos 2251, causing both to disintegrate and the creation of thousands of pieces of debris) or as a result of an ASAT (anti-satellite weapons) test. These tests (fortunately they have been few) consist of the destruction from Earth of its own satellites, and on each occasion thousands of debris are created.
The UN General Assembly approved a resolution in December 2022 inviting member states to refrain from carrying out such tests. This is undoubtedly a positive advance, but not enough to try to avoid Kessler syndrome. If everything were to continue to grow at its current rate (and we see it growing rapidly), we may soon be faced with a catastrophic event that could start a domino effect that would create more debris with each collision: what is known as Kessler syndrome.
In this new scenario, the role of commercial space activities and initiatives is becoming more and more important, suggesting that private agents will also run the business in terms of long-term goals for society. In fact, in recent years, the evolution of the space economy has contributed to a transformative shift in the role of the entrepreneurial state (the state whose main entrepreneurial force comes from the public and not from the private sector) towards the emergence of other roles of the States in which the private sectors play a crucial role in creating value for society and take the lead in expanding commercial space opportunities.
While in the past space activities were directed and carried out exclusively by governments, in just five years the global landscape of space activities has evolved with the growth of private interests that have been supported by unprecedented inflows of private capital. In such a context, private agents are playing a more prominent role, in pursuit of the ultimate goal of carrying out space businesses independently or according to new forms of collaboration with public institutions. With their technical knowledge and capacity for innovation, private agents in the space sector have the potential to significantly contribute to solving some of the most important global challenges (such as climate change, the energy transition or the depletion of resources) and generate value for society. Thanks to cheaper access to space and financial support from private investors, these emerging technologies are expected to improve in the medium and long term.
However, investing in complex infrastructure and with long-term investments may need to occur in an environment of technical, economic, geopolitical and security risks. On these bases, private and public actors seem to be converging through different patterns of collaboration at the international level to face the different risks that could arise from the development of such infrastructures, most of which are critical for the survival of humanity.
However, taking into account the different social and technical challenges that governments must face and the growing interests of private actors, states could and should assume different roles ranging from being an entrepreneur or facilitator to being a client for solutions. commercial.
Where governments and public funds continue to play a fundamental and indispensable role is undoubtedly in the systematic human and robotic exploration of the solar system, with targets such as the Moon, Mars, asteroids and other celestial bodies beyond.
Some sixty years ago, on September 12, 1962, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivered at Rice University one of the most inspiring speeches in history and one that still embodies the true spirit of space exploration today: “We decided to go to the Moon.” in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are difficult. NASA did it in July 1969: two human beings walked on the surface of our natural satellite.
However, after several decades, going to space is still difficult. More affordable, more reusable, more frequent, but difficult. Today other public and private agents try to follow the path of the past, but landing on the Moon is still difficult. Recently, on April 25, the Hakuto-R lander, developed by the private Japanese company iSpace and carrying a rover called Rashid developed in the United Arab Emirates, attempted to land on its surface after successfully reaching lunar orbit. During the landing maneuver, mission control lost signals, most likely due to a collision with the ground. Therefore, until today, after the unsuccessful attempts made in 2019 by Israel with Bereshit and by India with Chandrayaan 2, only three countries have achieved a controlled moon landing: the US, the USSR and China, all of them with missions led by their governments. The last Soviet occasion was a robotic mission launched in August 1976, Luna 24. Some analysts consider it the mission that ended the lunar race between the US and the USSR. And, in honor of historical rigor, we must remember that the last Apollo mission, which took two other human beings to operate on the Moon, was Apollo 17, in December 1972. In total, there were six Apollo missions that landed with success, each one of them with two representatives of our human species.
Until now, no one else has been able to get humans to our satellite, although we see signs that that may change soon. China is picking up quite a bit since 2007. The Chinese goddess of the Moon, Chang’e, was selected to name the series of missions that have already landed, collected samples and brought them back to Earth, and the country plans to bring soon humans. The selected area: the south polar region. The same objective as Luna 25, also called Luna-Glob, a Russian mission whose launch is currently scheduled for July 13, 2023 and whose main scientific objectives are to study the composition of the polar regolith and the plasma and dust components of the lunar polar exosphere. It is fascinating that the Russians have chosen Luna 25 as the name for that next mission to the Moon, after Luna 24 and 47 years of inactivity.
On the other side of the world, from the Kennedy Space Center and from the historic launch pad 39-B, NASA launched in November 2022 a mission called Artemis I, named after Artemis, the sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. . It was the first of a series of Artemis missions with the aim of returning to the Moon to stay. This time not alone, but in international collaboration. Are we going back to history or are we projecting ourselves into the future? Back to the Moon, no doubt, but this time together. The Artemis agreements, signed by 23 countries, are a sign of interest in responsibly approaching a systematic exploration of the solar system. At the same time, China and Russia signed an agreement to jointly develop a project called the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) with the same objective as Artemis: to install a base near the South Pole. Is it a new space race? It is difficult to contradict this perception. And why all to the South Pole? At the end of 2025, if the forecast is fulfilled, NASA will return to place human beings on the surface of the Moon, at the South Pole. 13 candidate landing regions have been selected, all of them in that region due to the presence of water ice. Chang’e is also scheduled to land there; and China has selected ten possible landing sites. If we compare the selected points, we see elements for a possible future race and conflict, at least as far as Shackleton, Haworth and Nobile craters are concerned. The ¬ILRS plans call for a human presence on the Moon in 2026. That means, with all the uncertainties inherent in complex space missions, that China, Russia and the US will once again try to be first; at least, to be able to choose the place that they like the most. So the answer may be: yes, we are facing a new space race.
Let’s take a closer look at the renewed interest in the Moon. Their goal is to establish permanent settlements where humans live and work permanently at the South Pole, which is a region about 600 kilometers wide. There is oxygen in lunar rocks that can be extracted for many purposes: life support, propellant, or facilitator of plant growth. Lunar oxygen will make it possible to avoid having to carry propellant from Earth, which is more cost-effective and sustainable. We have already mentioned the presence of water ice, essential for human presence. In addition, there are abundant metallic resources, such as titanium, in large quantities. All of this assumes that a Moon-based economy is not only possible, but viable. An economy that will resemble the same models that we have developed on Earth in certain areas and that in others will be completely new and different. In order to maintain a permanent human presence, we will need to build infrastructure and facilities that allow agriculture (biosphere cylinders and greenhouses in which to grow crops), energy production, resource extraction, sustaining life through habitats and recycling systems. , training centers for the well-being of the lunar population and communication systems. Analysts estimate that by 2040 the market for lunar goods and services will grow to $170 billion. This trend will also arouse increasing interest among non-space actors. In other words, terrestrial sectors such as the automotive, mining or construction sectors could accept the challenge of opening up to new ways of doing things, since building a building or driving on the Moon requires different skills than those on Earth. Although the exact date when this whole new phase will actually begin is yet to be determined (I would say, in any case, before the end of the decade, to refer again to Kennedy’s Rice University speech), what we know with certainty is that it will happen. Will the countries be able to move from geopolitics to astropolitics and cooperate for the benefit of a betterment of humanity?
The next logical step in space exploration is, and always has been, Mars. NASA is the most systematic in exploring the planet to understand its evolution and in accordance with the motto: “follow the water”. Humanity has improved its knowledge of Mars, although much remains to be discovered and understood. The Mars Sample Return mission, a robotic exploration whose objective is to collect samples from the surface and bring them back to Earth, has been postponed for a couple of decades. And it is that, yes, indeed, space is difficult. When the SpaceX company was created in 2002, its founder Elon Musk focused on reusable launchers and resupply of the International Space Station. SpaceX, with the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon capsule, is in fact NASA’s main provider of those services. Currently, Musk is working on Starship, a fully reusable transportation system to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. At 120 meters tall and with a payload capacity of 100-150 tons, it is the most powerful space transportation system ever built. The first test flight of the complete version of the Starship took place on April 20, 2023 from Boca Chica (Texas), where the SpaceX Starbase (space center for the production and development of Starship rockets) is located. The rocket had to be destroyed by SpaceX due to an anomaly within minutes of liftoff. The investigations continue, but at Space X they hope to fly again in a few months.
“You want to get up in the morning and think that the future is going to be great; And that is what it means to be a civilization with activity in space. It is about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than getting out there and being among the stars” (Elon Musk). This is what you can read in the declaration of principles of the SpaceX website. When available, Starship will allow a sustained presence of humans on the surface of the red planet (in 2029, according to Elon Musk), with the idea of ??establishing a city there. Why Mars? To transform humanity into a multi-planetary species. Thus, in the event that an event ends life on Earth, humanity will survive. Not taking sides, but with my usual scientific approach to life: if that happens, there is no doubt that it will be a new phase in the history of humanity.
To maintain all the aforementioned efforts, we will also have to extract resources from asteroids, in which gold, iron, nickel, rare earths abound. According to Goldman Sachs, each asteroid may contain platinum worth an average of about $50 billion. That would explain the enthusiasm for the field of space mining and the creation of new companies dedicated to it. One asteroid in particular has caught the attention of scientists and miners, Psyche 16, with an estimated value of some 70,000 times the entire current world economy. NASA, by the way, will send a mission to study it. The expected launch date is October 5, 2023. It will be a trip to that unique metal-rich asteroid that orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, located in the main belt. The scientific goal is ambitious and far-reaching: to explore a new kind of world, one that is made not of rock or ice, but of metal.
What can be extracted from asteroids is seen as a potential source for increasing sustainability on Earth, but it is also key to sustaining interplanetary travel. There will be a need to refuel spaceships that travel through the solar system as we do at service stations, essential when traveling on a highway.
Every year, from October 4 to 10, World Space Week (WSW) is celebrated, declared as such by the United Nations in December 1999 with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of space science and technology. for the benefit of humanity. The chosen dates are related to two important events in the history of space activities. On October 4, 1957, we witnessed the launch of the first man-made satellite, and on October 10, 1967, the Outer Space Treaty entered into force. Now, we could ask ourselves: what is the regulatory framework for this new era of space exploration? Since the Moon agreement has only been ratified by a few countries, the only truly applicable treaty is the Outer Space Treaty. As has already been said, space, and therefore the Moon, Mars, asteroids, cannot be appropriated, and we trust that countries will behave responsibly when it comes to the need to rescue astronauts, for example. What is missing is a framework of technical standards. The best example is aviation: the Chicago Convention on air traffic approved in 1944 has been annexed to 19 protocols that regulate all technical aspects to guarantee the safety of operations. In the space realm, that is missing. Indeed, a global entity in charge of coordinating space traffic and supervising the respect of the rules and regulations by countries is urgently needed. This means an agreement on global governance under the umbrella of the United Nations, and the sooner the better.
In September 2021, the Secretary General of the United Nations published a report, Our Common Agenda, in which, for the first time in the history of the organization, the space between the seven main issues that member states must debate at the Summit is addressed. of the Future, which will take place in September 2024. It will be an important first step towards a more structured approach to the issue of space traffic regulation in low-Earth orbit, on the Moon and beyond, but we need to act quickly and collective if we want to preserve space as a territory of humanity. For our grandchildren.
Simonetta Di Pippo is director of the Spatial Economy Evolution Laboratory (SEE Lab) at the SDA Bocconi business school in Milan. She is the former director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). She is the author of ‘Space Economy: The New Frontier for Development’ (Bocconi University Press, 2023).
