The last few years have been marked by trade wars and hot wars. This year may bring with it star wars, as space — the “final economic frontier” — becomes the focus of a global race for dominance by both public and private actors.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Orbital ATK, ViaSat, SES, OneWeb and more than 10,000 other commercial space companies have grown over the past two decades into a burgeoning sector known as “new space,” dedicated to growing private space access and space station servicing to satellite operations, defence technology, data analytics and even more speculative areas like space tourism, manufacturing and asteroid mining.
SpaceX is the best known new space player, having launched thousands of satellites for both public and private use. Musk’s Starlink service has kept the Ukrainian internet up and running even as Russian forces shut down other telecommunications. But it has also become a potential target for Moscow’s military, even as Musk haggled with the Pentagon over the cost of keeping the Ukrainians online.