FROM OLD / NEW SPACE TO SMART SPACE: CHANGING ECOSYSTEMS OF SPACE INNOVATION

Abstract

The social organization of the space sector has been changing in recent decades in ways that reflect changed government priorities and, in turn, new commercial opportunities. This shift is occuring in distributed ways that standard policy may under-specify. We propose an empirical framework that maps changes in the following: shifts in the purpose of space activity, the categories of organizational actors from different sectors of missions and projects, and
governance arrangements in the sector. We develop this approach using insights from research on the dynamics of business and innovation ecosystems. We use the ecosystem lens to map relevant changes across key dimensions in the sector and to rethink conventional policy frames. We find that the use of the ecosystem lens over ime points to how spare si shaped towards exploration or exploitation, collaboration or competition, sustainability or scarcity wheter by formal intention or not.