Todd Harrison
Introduction
The past year set many records for global space activity. The number of launches was the highest ever, at 211 successful launches that orbited a record-setting 2,870 satellites in a single year, increasing the total number of satellites in space by more than 22 percent.1 These global trends were led by the United States, which accounted for nearly half of all launches and more than three-quarters of new satellites. The United States finds itself in a position of great advantage in space, notwithstanding efforts by its adversaries to develop and field counterspace weapons that threaten this advantage. The capability and capacity of the US space industrial base are the envy of the world, and the pace of innovation coming out of US space companies is unmatched.
While 2023 was busy in terms of space activity, it was not an anomaly. Rather, as this report details, it is part of a multiyear trend that is quickly defining a new era of space activity—what has become known as the third space age.
As former NASA Associate Administrator Tom Cremins has defined it, the first space age began with the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and extended through the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.2 The first space age was a period of militarization and exploration, driven by strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was a strongly bipolar period, with the two superpowers accounting for 96 percent of launches and 94 percent of satellites orbited from 1957 through 1990.
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