LEADERS' OUTLOOK
Space Remains a Very Strong Economic Growth Multiplier BY MIKE GREENLEY
T
CEO, MDA
here’s a palpable excitement about Space these days. A sense that big things are happening.
This is driven in part by awareness of the enormous impact that satellite technologies have on our lives — activity in Space is bringing access to communications to people no matter where they live; Earth Observation (EO) is allowing us to monitor all kinds of variables around the world and detect changes bringing new insights to decision-makers in multiple sectors. In part it stems from a growing understanding of the economic impact of Space: high-quality jobs, strong supply chains, strong economic benefits with very strong economic growth multipliers, and new business opportunities in areas like Space-based manufacturing or Space-mining. Then there’s the fact that some big names have ventures in Space that are making headlines. And of course, Space is just cool.
ANNUAL EDITION / JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022
Space industry outlook
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In fact, we are on the cusp of a New Space age, driven in large part by accessibility. The cost of launch has gone down year over year, for a number of years now. If we go back to the 1990s or the early 2000s, the cost of launch might have been USD 18,000 per kg to get something into Space, compared to the current cost of slightly less than USD 2,000 per kg. And the launch community suggests that maybe, in time, it can come down another 10x to under USD 200 per kg. It is a game changer. In the
first decades that Canada was in Space, there were just a few Space-faring nations, now there are 90, and thousands of commercial companies.
So, it’s no wonder that invested capital in Space has doubled every year for the last four — even through the pandemic. The global Space economy is now worth USD 450 billion a year, and by the 2030s is forecast to reach more than USD 1.5 trillion. For perspective, that is roughly the size of the current GDP of my country, Canada. Now, with multiple countries and companies participating in this domain, as Space becomes more congested and competitive, we will need to be more organized about how we all operate together and how we take care of the resources that we already have in Space, just as we do with our skies and seas on Earth.
Value of Earth Observation
The evolution of satellite technology is stunning... and accelerating. In the constellation era, companies with bold vision and a mission-critical mindset are opening the aperture wider to reach more of
