Space industry trends 2021
This is a list of trends that could be identified in the Space industry/business. It’s should be useful for forecasting how the industry can grow in the following years.
This list is not complete and it’s designed to be constantly updated. If you are interested, subscribe!
If you have any trends that should be included, please, leave a comment below.
1- Increase in # of new companies creating launch services ➡ Reduction on kg/orbit
Each year, we’re seeing a growing number of new companies building launch services, mainly for small payloads.
You can expect in the following years more alternatives and a huge reduction on $/kg to orbit.
Nowadays, 1U CubeSat's launch to LEO is around 35k (Nanoracks), and 3U around 150k (Nanoracks/Spaceflight). You can expect a drop in that pricing in the upcoming years.
Nowadays, there are more than 150 launcher companies (each one with a different level of progress).
Here you can find a full list of companies: https://spacefund.com/launch-database/
2- Rapidly increase on # of elements in orbit ➡ Higher risk of space collisions
Cheaper $/kg means more individual satellites and more constellations. This can be great for the industry, but there could be challenges since most of them are launch to LEO.
Space collisions could cause a multi-billion dollar problem. A small space collision can quickly become a huge and exponential problem since each fragment can generate new collisions with more and larger elements in orbit.
It seems LeoLabs is working on a solution for this problem: https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/leolabs-raises-65m-series-b-for-its-satellite-monitoring-and-collision-detection-service/
3- China is making huge progress on his space exploration ➡ US will not be alone
It’s amazing how much progress China is doing, not only on the scientific side, but also on the entrepreneurial space industry.
It’s important to keep up to date on China updates and news because it will be important companies and players from there.
