Space exploration and space science industry

Industry Snapshot

GENERAL INDUSTRY: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

CAREER CLUSTERS: Government and Public Administration Occupations; Information Technology; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math; Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics

SUBCATEGORY INDUSTRIES: Computer Systems Design Services; Engineering Services; Geophysical Surveying and Mapping Services; Guided Missile and Space Vehicle Engine and Parts Research and Development; Guided Missile and Space Vehicle Manufacturing; Guided Missile and Space Vehicle Merchant Wholesalers; Guided Missile and Space Vehicle Propulsion Unit and Propulsion Unit Parts Manufacturing; Nonscheduled Space Freight Transportation; Satellite and Satellite Antenna Manufacturing; Space Research and Technology; Testing Laboratories

RELATED INDUSTRIES: Alternative Power Industry; Defense Industry; Scientific and Technical Services Industry; Scientific, Medical, and Health Equipment and Supplies Industry; Telecommunications Equipment Industry

ANNUAL DOMESTIC REVENUES: Space systems: US$13.9 billion (Via Satellite, 2023); US government spending: US$69.5 billion (Space Foundation, 2023); space vehicle and missile manufacturing: US$41.1 billion (IBISWorld, 2024).

ANNUAL GLOBAL REVENUES: $546 billion USD (Space Foundation, 2023)

NAICS NUMBERS: 334220, 336414–336419, 423860, 481212, 541330, 541360, 541380, 541512, 541712, 927110

Summary

The space exploration and space science industry creates piloted and unpiloted vehicles and devices that venture into space, study phenomena beyond Earth's atmosphere, and make use of extraterrestrial resources—including extreme height, a resource used by satellites to study Earth itself and to enable mass communications, for example. The resources on Earth constitute only a tiny fraction of those available within an hour of light-travel time in the solar system. The space industry already reaches most technical and business sectors of industry, and as it transitions from an industry primarily of scientific exploration and military uses to one primarily of commercial development, it has the potential for unlimited expansion. The industry's core sectors are launch, spacecraft, and ground operations. In the future, there may be large growth in a fourth sector, extraterrestrial operations. Communications, entertainment, and remote sensing are the industry's largest civilian market sectors. Though only a few organizations operate independent launch facilities, dozens of nations own and operate satellites, and most use data feeds or results obtained by satellites. Weather prediction and navigation of aircraft, ships, and automobiles all depend on the space industry.

History of the Industry

Although humanity has dreamed of cruising the heavens for thousands of years, it was only in June 1944 that the first human-built object—a German V-2 missile—crossed the Kármán line, the traditional boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space, located one hundred kilometers (sixty-two miles) above sea level. In 1957, the Soviet Union's Sputnik satellite became the first controlled spacecraft to achieve the speed and altitude required to go into a stable orbit outside Earth's atmosphere; it transmitted radio signals back to Earth. The first man in space was Yuri Gagarin, and the first woman was Valentina Tereshkova, both of the Soviet Union.

The application of space satellites for reconnaissance and then for remote sensing of terrestrial resources followed. Space law evolved, first to allow overflights of national territory and thus avoid shoot-down incidents, then to ascribe national responsibility for damage caused by objects in or falling from space, to declare the resources beyond Earth as the property of all humankind, and to ban weapons and nuclear explosions in space. Nations raced to place satellites in geostationary orbit above Earth's equator. The Telstar satellite relayed telephone signals around the world in 1963. Launchers first developed for intercontinental ballistic missiles were turned into increasingly powerful boosters, placing heavy reconnaissance satellites and boosting equipment to build space stations, partly for military purposes.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 to support the move toward human spaceflight. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the objective of landing a human on the moon before the end of the decade. The US Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs and the Soviet Vostok, Voshkod, and Soyuz programs steadily increased the confidence of humans in space, building up to the landing of two men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the lunar surface in 1969. Five more successful human missions to the lunar surface followed. Before this, following several unsuccessful attempts, the Soviets' Luna 9 lunar lander had delivered the Lunokhod rover to the moon's surface. Their Venera 7 spacecraft landed on Venus in 1970 and transmitted signals for fifty-eight minutes. The American Viking lander touched down on Mars in 1976. Thousands of successful space launches followed, the vast majority coming from the United States or the Soviet Union (later the Russian Federation).

Missions to the outer planets became feasible with very low energy levels after the invention of the "slingshot," or gravity-boost, maneuver, whereby a spacecraft would use the gravitational acceleration of a heavenly body to swing around it toward another destination. The Pioneer (launched in 1972) and Voyager (first launched in 1977) missions, followed by the Galileo (1989) and Cassini-Huygens (1997) missions, sent back spectacular images of the planets and their moons. NASA's NEAR-Shoemaker mission touched down on the near-Earth object (NEO) Eros, an asteroid, in 2001, and the Japanese Hayabusa mission (launched 2003) landed on a NEO, lifted off from it, and returned to Earth, completing its mission in June of 2010.

NASA has landed and operated several solar-powered robotic rovers on Mars and, significantly, has proved the existence of water ice there. Missions to the moon, including the Indian Chandrayaan mission (2008)—carrying a science payload cosponsored by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)—and the NASA LCROSS mission (2009), helped prove the existence of significant amounts of water in the perpetually shaded regions of the Moon.

Orbiting observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope (launched 1990), the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (launched 1991), the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (launched 1999), the Spitzer Space Telescope (launched 2003), the Kepler Planetfinder Telescope (launched 2010), and the James Webb Space Telescope (launched 2021) have collected data in both the visible and some nonvisible portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, opening up deep space astronomy, reinforcing the big bang theory of the universe's origins, revealing cosmological phenomena such as dark matter and dark energy, and leading to the discovery of a growing number of planetary systems that could potentially support life. Between 1992 and 2010, astronomers using both earthbound and space-based telescopes discovered more than 450 exoplanets, or planets outside the solar system. This number continues to rise, and the belief that conditions might exist for life—even intelligent life—beyond the solar system has gained increasing acceptance by scientists. On Earth, radio telescopes constantly collect radio emissions from distant parts of the Milky Way galaxy and beyond, downloading these data to computers that search for patterns that would suggest the presence of intelligent life.

Closer to home, use of geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) is now regulated by the United Nations to ensure that all nations can use this key region of Earth orbit. At GEO, satellites remain stationary above a particular point on Earth and are thus able to perform such important functions as relaying telecommunications and facilitating geopositioning. Specific parts of the GEO have been allotted to each nation. Large satellites at GEO enable tens of thousands of intercontinental telephone calls to be made simultaneously. The number of orbital slots at GEO is limited by the spread and interference of signal beams; as operating frequencies increase, beams get narrower and require less power, allowing closer spacing and hence more slots.

The Industry Today

While many nations participate in the space industry, there are only a few major governmental or multinational space agencies today. These include NASA; the Russian federal space agency Federal'noye Kosmicheskoye Agentstvo Rossii (FKA), often known as Roscosmos (RKA); the European Space Agency (ESA); the National Space Agency of the People's Republic of China (CNSA); the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO); and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). In addition, the French, Israeli, Iranian, and Ukrainian national space agencies are known to be capable of launching into space.

The Cold War US-Soviet "space race" has given way to more collaborative multinational efforts, with launch facilities in the United States, Russia, Kazakhstan, Guyana (owned by the ESA), the United Kingdom, China, India, Japan, and both the Korean republics. The Soviet Mir space station (which was destroyed in 2001) and the US-led International Space Station (ISS) have hosted astronauts and cosmonauts from several nations, and the ISS has multinational scientific laboratories for microgravity research. The US-owned Global Positioning System (GPS), the European Galileo, and the Russian GLONASS operate constellations of navigational satellites in middle-altitude orbits, providing global coverage. Earth observation satellites and weather satellites provide early warning of storms and fires, enable prediction of crop yields, and help locate natural resources. China's Tiangong Space Station is under construction, while Russia was developing its own.

Today, the space industry has three main components. The first is the launch enterprise. Space launchers are large vehicles consisting mainly of fuel tanks and rocket engines. These engines are chemical propulsion systems that use solid, liquid, or hybrid solid-liquid propellants. The payload to be delivered to space is placed near the top of a stack of two or three stages of such rockets, and each stage falls off sequentially as its propellant is exhausted. Liquid propellants include kerosene, nitric acid, liquid oxygen, and liquid hydrogen. Solid rocket boosters are cast from organic and inorganic chemicals into pressure vessels and transported as completed components to the launch site. Launch facilities have the massive infrastructures necessary to assemble and handle such vehicles and to withstand the power of the launch process. Such facilities employ numerous technical and administrative personnel to conduct this process safely and efficiently. Payroll expenses greatly exceed fuel costs. The launch enterprise has much in common with chemical and mechanical heavy industries and power plants.

The second component of the space industry is spacecraft, which are highly sophisticated packages of instrumentation tailored to their specific mission. They typically have solar panels that can be deployed once in space to provide the bulk of their power. Orbit correction fuel and thrusters are carried on board. Because every kilogram placed in low Earth orbit requires some ten or more kilograms of launcher mass, spacecraft components must be designed for minimal mass. At the same time, packages must be able to survive the stresses experienced during launch and the harsh radiation and temperature extremes outside Earth's atmosphere. Typical large communications satellites placed in GEO are built to last more than seventeen years with no prospect of repair or maintenance, so components are produced and installed with extreme care to avoid contamination. Redundant systems are installed to provide safety margins. Solar panels for these spacecraft use the most efficient conversion technologies, albeit at high cost. Fuel cells are used to release energy.

The spacecraft industry strives to maximize the number of transmitter-responder units (transponders) that can be placed on a single satellite. For example, the Space Systems/Loral EchoStar XIV satellite, launched in March 2010 to provide direct-to-home television services for the Dish Network, had a mass of 6,384 kilograms (14,074 pounds) and carried 103 Ku-band (11–18 gigahertz) transponders. This industry component has much in common with both the semiconductor electronic systems industry and the renewable power industry.

Other spacecraft are designed for long-duration missions to distant destinations. These are powered by electric-propulsion engines, typically ion rockets using xenon or other rare-gas thrusters. Nuclear power is used in the form of thermoelectric conversion of the heat from radioisotope decay. Future craft may use enriched-fuel nuclear reactors for direct heating of propellants.

The third component of the space industry comprises the ground-based businesses that service mission operations, receiving data in the form of remote-sensing images or relayed radio, television, and telephone signals for sale in terrestrial markets. In addition to the communications industry, the entertainment industry is a major user of satellite services. With millions of customers as end users, this industry component includes telecommunication and entertainment distribution companies as well.

Efforts to find other commercial applications of spaceflight have led to the establishment of over twenty different NASA space commercialization centers and several spaceport organizations. In addition to NASA's centers, the US Department of Commerce has an Office of Space Commercialization, based in facilities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a major supplier of weather and resource data. The ISS has been vigorously promoted by NASA as a multinational laboratory offering commercial product-development services in microgravity. These efforts have been limited by the delay in completing the ISS, which also delayed ISS's relocation to an orbit high enough to achieve true microgravity. At a higher orbit, the station would no longer experience "g-jitter," a phenomenon caused by its proximity to the atmosphere and Earth's gravity gradients.

Well-known US corporate space entities around the world include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Orbital Sciences, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Alliant Techsystems (ATK). International entities include the S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation (Energia) in Russia, European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), Antrix in India, Japan Aerospace Corporation, and Mitsubishi International in Japan. Notable joint ventures include the United Space Alliance in the United States, the Arab Satellite Communications Organization (Arabsat), and the US-Russia-Norway-Ukraine Sea Launch venture. Entities such as COMSAT and Globalstar are well known in the satellite communications industry.

Industry Outlook

Overview

The space industry is still young and is undergoing a basic transformation from its military-dominated origins in the 1950s through the 1980s to a more open, global commercial industry. The extensive resources necessary for spaceflight long meant the industry was dominated by governments, and the outlook therefore was highly subject to political as well as economic trends. As recently as the late 1990s, there were optimistic projections of a "gold rush to orbit" based on demand for global positioning and satellite telephone constellations. However, with the collapse of the Iridium satellite telephone system and the economic decline following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, commercial space-launch demand shrank. In 2002, the Walker Commission found that demand for commercial space launches was declining, partly because existing satellites were not failing and therefore did not need to be replaced and partly because new satellites could carry more transponders, so fewer satellites could perform more work. The drastic reductions in workforce as military programs declined, combined with the failure of the early business models for commercial markets, resulted in reduced hiring and an increase in the average age of the technical workforce.

However, technology also improved in the early twenty-first century, in many ways reshaping the space industry completely. Launch costs per pound to geostationary transfer orbit declined from $15,000 in 1990 to under $5,000 in 2002, for example. By the 2010s, objectives considered by NASA emphasized commercial space-launch operations and increased science missions. Meanwhile, robotic and micro/nano space operations continued to grow, boosted by the availability of a number of missile launchers that must be verifiably disposed of under nuclear arms reduction agreements. The outlook for the global space industry is also bright, as capabilities improve around the world to access, inhabit, and develop resources in extraterrestrial environments. The newer space industries of China, India, Japan, and South America all invested heavily in both national and commercial space ventures. Whether this development leads to competition or collaboration, it bodes well for the future of the industry, as the resources and markets involved are potentially unlimited. This optimism was seen in the headline-grabbing rise of private companies with their own capability to launch and land proprietary spacecraft. Among the most notable such companies were Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic, all founded by ultrawealthy entrepreneurs with interests in spaceflight.

There are three distinct schools of thought regarding the future of the space economy. The first envisioned future is the closest to today's industry and involves incremental advances in propulsion systems, launch vehicles, and satellite-transponder technology as the growth path, constrained however by the difficulty of reducing launch costs. The second is born of the science enterprise and argues for investment in deep-space probes, observatories, and other exploration systems, including the mapping of asteroids and NEOs as generators of vital knowledge that can lead to many technological spin-offs. The third is born of the 1970s efforts to extract resources from beyond Earth, including solar power from space.

The quest to develop space solar power as a viable commodity has so far failed to break through the immense barriers in cost to create a working prototype, but international efforts by such entities as JAXA and the ESA continue to advance this dream. With evolutionary paths to space solar power being advanced, there is a real prospect of the barriers being circumvented, given international will and urgency.

Some breakthrough technologies are well within sight. "Reboost packages" developed under funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have demonstrated the ability to rendezvous with GEO spacecraft nearing the end of their useful lives and renew their life spans by several years, reducing the insurance risk. As on-orbit-servicing technologies transition from the military to the commercial world, they will enable not only repair and refueling of satellites but also the creation of refuelable space-based orbit transfer vehicles. This will improve the payload fraction and reduce the need for redundant systems on many space launches. Thus, business models for the industry can improve substantially in the near future, driving demand for all sectors of the industry. Space tourism, while generating much publicity, is likely to remain a niche market until costs come down and infrastructure in space expands greatly.

Current trends appear to involve NASA leaving the business of running routine space-access operations and instead focusing on science missions. Exploration missions to distant planets and asteroids appear destined to remain mainly within the realm of government programs until there is a global move toward infrastructure development and collaborative planning of business ventures. However, the ambitions of several high-profile commercial spaceflight companies in the late 2010s and early 2020s suggested continuing expansion of the private space sector into all aspects of the industry.

Developments in the 2020s focus on the Artemis missions to return humans to the moon, the James Webb Space Telescope, and geopolitical concerns that might affect the ISS. In 2021 NASA founded the Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) project to develop commercial destinations in space including space stations. In development were Starlab, a $160 million Nanoracks project targeting 2027 launch; Orbital Reef, managed by Blue Origin and Sierra Space, a $130 million project planned to launch by 2013; and a $125.6 million Northrop Grumman project. NASA, ESA, JAXA, and CSA were collaborating on Artemis, a mission that involves building the Lunar Gateway, a space station that will be placed in lunar orbit. The first module was planned to launch in late 2024. NASA's fiscal year (FY) 2024 budget was $24.9 billion, a decrease of 2 percent over FY 2023.

Employment Advantages

Space jobs are typically regarded as exciting, high-tech jobs that pay well and offer a good work environment. The prestige factor is high, starting from the Apollo program days and the public perception of "rocket scientists." This view was severely dented during the 1990s aerospace recession and simultaneous computer-industry boom. As the space industry shifts more toward commercial projects and the computer industry becomes more commodified and outsourced, however, the trend may be reversed, returning prestige to the space industry. A good cross-disciplinary understanding of the demands of large space systems and of the intense quality demands of space products is a valuable by-product of working in the space industry. It can serve experienced workers well in founding their own businesses or transitioning to other technology businesses for advancement.

Annual Earnings

The civil and commercial portions of the space industry exceeded the government space establishment in expenditures for the first time in 1998, and since then nongovernment revenues have continued to climb. In 2023, American space systems industry revenues were estimated at $13.9, part of the broader $952 billion aerospace and defense industry, and global space industry revenues were $536 billion in 2023. With increasing global commercial space capabilities and competition, the earnings of this industry are poised for continued growth even as government budgets change.

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