Space at a Glance
Structural signals shaping the commercial space economy.
- •Reusable launch has cut the cost of reaching orbit by roughly an order of magnitude over the past decade, led by SpaceX. Rocket Lab's Neutron and Blue Origin's New Glenn are now entering the medium-to-heavy class.
- •Direct-to-cell is the newest commercial frontier. AST SpaceMobile and the Starlink and T-Mobile partnership aim to connect ordinary, unmodified smartphones straight to satellites.
- •Earth observation has matured into a recurring-revenue data business. Planet Labs and BlackSky sell imagery and analytics subscriptions rather than one-off satellites.
- •Commercial lunar access opened in February 2024 when Intuitive Machines' IM-1 Odysseus became the first private spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon, followed by Firefly's Blue Ghost in 2025.