Space powers: how critical technologies are emerging from public-private partnerships

The space econ­o­my is under­go­ing a fun­da­men­tal trans­for­ma­tion. In July 2021, pri­vate space flights by Richard Bran­son and Jeff Bezos demon­strat­ed the grow­ing com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty of space trav­el. That same year, Chi­na’s Zhurong rover joined NASA’s Per­se­ver­ance on Mars, reflect­ing increased inter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion in space explo­ration. These devel­op­ments sig­nal a broad­er shift in how gov­ern­ments and pri­vate enter­pris­es approach space, with ana­lysts pro­ject­ing the space econ­o­my could reach $1.8 tril­lion by 2035.

This pro­ject­ed growth encom­pass­es diverse activ­i­ties rang­ing from satel­lite deploy­ment and nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems to space tourism and plan­e­tary explo­ration. NASA’s planned 2028 Drag­on­fly mis­sion, which will send a quad­copter-like rover to Sat­urn’s moon Titan using tech­nolo­gies demon­strat­ed by Mars’ Inge­nu­ity heli­copter, exem­pli­fies how pub­lic agen­cies and pri­vate com­pa­nies are increas­ing­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing to advance space capa­bil­i­ties. SpaceX’s Fal­con Heavy already hav­ing been booked for the launch.

The legal foun­da­tion for space activ­i­ties was estab­lished through the UN’s 1967 Out­er Space Treaty, which des­ig­nat­ed space as a com­mons for all mankind, and the 1979 Moon Agree­ment, which pro­hib­it­ed resource own­er­ship. How­ev­er, these frame­works are being rein­ter­pret­ed and sup­ple­ment­ed as com­mer­cial space activ­i­ty expands. The 2020 U.S. Artemis Accords rep­re­sent one such evo­lu­tion, cre­at­ing non-bind­ing mul­ti­lat­er­al arrange­ments for space coop­er­a­tion. By July 2025, 56 coun­tries had signed these accords. Mean­while, nation­al space pro­grams have pro­lif­er­at­ed glob­al­ly, with the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion’s June 2025 EU Space Act explic­it­ly tar­get­ing lead­er­ship in the space econ­o­my. These pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives have coin­cid­ed with tech­no­log­i­cal advances, par­tic­u­lar­ly in AI and robot­ics, that have reduced space flight costs and accel­er­at­ed innovation.

Com­mer­cial inter­ests have also shaped the reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment. The Unit­ed States leg­is­lat­ed space resource extrac­tion for its cit­i­zens in 2015, with Lux­em­bourg, the UAE, and Japan enact­ing sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions. More recent­ly, August 2025 White House exec­u­tive orders empha­sised U.S. com­mer­cial space lead­er­ship. This pol­i­cy direc­tion reflects expec­ta­tions that the space econ­o­my will deliv­er satel­lite inter­net, enhanced nav­i­ga­tion, low Earth orbit com­merce, space tourism, in-space man­u­fac­tur­ing, aster­oid min­ing, and poten­tial set­tle­ments beyond Earth. These oppor­tu­ni­ties, how­ev­er, coex­ist with sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges. Space debris in low Earth orbit pos­es grow­ing risks to satel­lites and mis­sions. While the U.S., Rus­sia, and Chi­na are respon­si­ble for most orbital debris, reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works remain under­de­vel­oped. The absence of accept­ed def­i­n­i­tions dis­tin­guish­ing debris from func­tion­al objects com­pli­cates risk assess­ment and invest­ment deci­sions, cre­at­ing uncer­tain­ty that could con­strain future growth.

Under­ly­ing the space econ­o­my’s expan­sion is a broad­er com­pe­ti­tion for lead­er­ship in Crit­i­cal and Emerg­ing Tech­nolo­gies (CETs). These tech­nolo­gies, often dual-pur­pose (civilian/economy and defence), include AI, advanced semi­con­duc­tors, quan­tum com­put­ing, cloud ser­vices, drones, GPS, satel­lites, and advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing and mate­ri­als. The ‘crit­i­cal’ aspect refer­ring essen­tial­ly to emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies with the capac­i­ty to gen­er­ate break­throughs in key areas of nation­al inter­ests. CETs are char­ac­terised by their nov­el­ty, com­plex­i­ty, and resource require­ments. They also rely on a sup­ply chain of high­ly-trained pro­fes­sion­als from diverse fields of knowl­edge able to col­lab­o­rate glob­al­ly and seam­less­ly and across mul­ti­ple sectors. 

CETs are cen­tral to Knowl­edge and Tech­nol­o­gy Inten­sive (KTI) indus­tries, which con­tributed over $9tn glob­al­ly in 2022, rep­re­sent­ing 11% of glob­al GDP. Five economies—the Unit­ed States, Chi­na, the EU-27, Japan, and South Korea—accounted for 80% of glob­al KTI val­ue, high­light­ing the con­cen­tra­tion of tech­no­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty. This con­cen­tra­tion has prompt­ed major pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives aimed at secur­ing or expand­ing tech­no­log­i­cal leadership.

The EU is propos­ing a Euro­pean com­pet­i­tive­ness fund to sup­port AI, semi­con­duc­tors, robot­ics, quan­tum com­put­ing, space, and biotechnologies.

In the Unit­ed States, the 2020 Trump admin­is­tra­tion Nation­al Strat­e­gy iden­ti­fied 20 Crit­i­cal and Emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies essen­tial for defence and eco­nom­ic com­pet­i­tive­ness, includ­ing advanced com­put­ing, AI, biotech­nolo­gies, quan­tum infor­ma­tion sci­ence, and space tech­nolo­gies. The 2022 CHIPS and Sci­ence Act fol­lowed with $280bn in com­mit­ments over ten years to strength­en semi­con­duc­tor sup­ply chains and estab­lish the NSF’s Direc­torate for Tech­nol­o­gy, Inno­va­tion and Part­ner­ships. A March 2025 pres­i­den­tial exec­u­tive order fur­ther tasked the White House Office of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­cy with secur­ing U.S. lead­er­ship through pri­vate sec­tor invest­ment and new research fund­ing approach­es empha­sis­ing the ‘busi­ness’ of discovery.

Oth­er major economies have pur­sued par­al­lel strate­gies. The EU’s 2025 Com­pet­i­tive­ness Com­pass pro­pos­es a Euro­pean Com­pet­i­tive­ness Fund sup­port­ing AI, semi­con­duc­tors, robot­ics, quan­tum com­put­ing, space, clean­tech, and biotech. Japan’s Soci­ety 5.0 vision empha­sis­es AI, robot­ics, quan­tum tech­nol­o­gy, and semi­con­duc­tors. Chi­na’s Made in Chi­na 2025 tar­gets man­u­fac­tur­ing trans­for­ma­tion, lever­ag­ing its exten­sive skilled work­force and dom­i­nance glob­al­ly in rare earth pro­duc­tion, which is essen­tial for elec­tron­ics and defence systems.

The trans­la­tion of sci­en­tif­ic advances into com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions increas­ing­ly occurs through deep tech enterprises—companies lever­ag­ing break­throughs in sci­ence and engi­neer­ing to address chal­lenges in ener­gy, food secu­ri­ty, space explo­ration, and dis­ease treat­ment. These ven­tures face dis­tinct chal­lenges: inten­sive ear­ly-stage R&D require­ments, sub­stan­tial cap­i­tal needs before com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion, ded­i­cat­ed infra­struc­ture demands, and depen­dence on spe­cialised tal­ent in fields like opti­cal quan­tum sys­tems engineering.

Deep tech sec­tors over­lap sig­nif­i­cant­ly with CETs, encom­pass­ing AI, biotech, quan­tum com­put­ing, space tech­nol­o­gy, and defence tech­nol­o­gy. Recog­nis­ing this con­nec­tion, the Euro­pean Insti­tute of Inno­va­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy’s Deep Tech Tal­ent Ini­tia­tive aims to train one mil­lion peo­ple across 15 deep tech areas by 2025. Near­ly one-third of Euro­pean ven­ture cap­i­tal now flows to deep tech invest­ments. Sim­i­lar­ly, the U.S. gov­ern­ment has been a major deep tech investor, though 2025 bud­get cuts to agen­cies like the NSF have raised con­cerns about sus­tained sup­port. Chi­na has tak­en a strate­gic approach through a $138bn gov­ern­ment-backed fund tar­get­ing quan­tum com­put­ing and space technology.

The 2024 Nature Index rank­ing of sci­ence cities high­lights that half of the world’s top 20 sci­ence cities are now locat­ed in China.

The com­pe­ti­tion for tech­no­log­i­cal lead­er­ship ulti­mate­ly depends on human cap­i­tal. Chi­na cur­rent­ly grad­u­ates sig­nif­i­cant­ly more STEM stu­dents annu­al­ly than the U.S., Europe, and Japan com­bined, with over 40% of Chi­nese uni­ver­si­ty degrees in STEM fields com­pared to 20% in the U.S. The 2024 Nature Index Sci­ence Cities rank­ing rein­forced this shift, show­ing that half of the world’s top 20 sci­ence cities are now in Chi­na. The Unit­ed States has his­tor­i­cal­ly com­pen­sat­ed for domes­tic STEM pro­duc­tion through inter­na­tion­al tal­ent recruit­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly from Chi­na and India. How­ev­er, this advan­tage is being chal­lenged by pol­i­cy changes. Bud­get uncer­tain­ties and grant can­cel­la­tions have con­tributed to researcher depar­tures from U.S. insti­tu­tions. The Sep­tem­ber 2025 pres­i­den­tial procla­ma­tion impos­ing $100,000 fees for new H‑1B visa appli­ca­tions has par­tic­u­lar­ly affect­ed the tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor, poten­tial­ly accel­er­at­ing tal­ent flows to com­pet­ing nations.

While much atten­tion focus­es on major tech­nol­o­gy hubs, region­al inno­va­tion ecosys­tems also play impor­tant roles in advanc­ing space and Crit­i­cal and Emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies. New Mex­i­co pro­vides a use­ful exam­ple of how states can sup­port tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment through infra­struc­ture invest­ment and research insti­tu­tions. State-owned Space­port Amer­i­ca offers rock­et test­ing facil­i­ties used by com­pa­nies includ­ing SpaceX, pro­vid­ing access to spe­cialised infra­struc­ture that would require sub­stan­tial pri­vate invest­ment to repli­cate. At New Mex­i­co Tech, researchers are apply­ing bio­mimicry prin­ci­ples to devel­op drone tech­nolo­gies with appli­ca­tions rang­ing from plan­e­tary explo­ration to wildlife mon­i­tor­ing and avi­a­tion safety.

One project exam­ines how monarch but­ter­fly col­oration con­tributes to ener­gy con­ser­va­tion dur­ing their 3,000-mile migra­tion, with find­ings that could inform avi­a­tion effi­cien­cy improve­ments. Anoth­er ini­tia­tive is devel­op­ing mil­ligram-scale fly­ing sen­sors inspired by dan­de­lion seeds for Mars explo­ration. These sen­sors use piezo­elec­tric mate­ri­als to har­vest solar and atmos­pher­ic ener­gy, enabling autonomous oper­a­tion in Mar­t­ian lava tubes with­out bat­ter­ies. Addi­tion­al research includes nature-friend­ly sur­veil­lance drones using pre­served taxi­dermy that blend with wildlife pop­u­la­tions, pro­vid­ing insights into bird flight physics and flock­ing behav­iours applic­a­ble to com­mer­cial avi­a­tion. These find­ings inform the devel­op­ment of preda­tor bird drones designed to reduce cost­ly bird strikes at air­ports. The New Mex­i­co Bosque del Apache Nation­al Wildlife Refuge pro­vides an ide­al obser­va­to­ry for this research.

Beyond research out­put, New Mex­i­co Tech is devel­op­ing as a region­al drone tech­nol­o­gy hub through work­force devel­op­ment ini­tia­tives. A K‑12 drone pro­gram enables high school stu­dents to design and build drones dur­ing sum­mer ses­sions, while approx­i­mate­ly 40 grad­u­ate stu­dents from diverse dis­ci­plines have par­tic­i­pat­ed in drone tech­nol­o­gy, bio­mimicry, and plan­e­tary explo­ration research. 

Many of these stu­dents have been award­ed pres­ti­gious prizes for their con­tri­bu­tions and these are fre­quent­ly cel­e­brat­ed on social media. These stu­dents bond ear­ly as a team and are vis­i­ble pre­sen­ters at major con­fer­ences such as the 2025 AIAA Avi­a­tion and ASCEND Con­fer­ence, shar­ing their work on drones and aero­space sys­tems. Impor­tant local/regional com­mu­ni­ty out­reach gen­er­at­ing excite­ment about how NMT is rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing drone tech­nol­o­gy is also achieved on an ongo­ing basis through a num­ber of pub­lic out­lets, includ­ing media inter­views with e.g., New Mex­i­co Fron­tiers Dig­i­tal Show KRQE.

A drone major is cur­rent­ly being designed to con­nect com­mu­ni­ty col­leges across New Mex­i­co to cre­ate a path­way for a future gen­er­a­tion of stu­dents to active­ly con­tribute as part of the work­force designed for the State’s aero­space indus­try. As part of the core facil­i­ties avail­able there is also a net­ted drone cage where any types of drones can be test­ed with­out hav­ing to wor­ry about breach­ing the FAA rules.

With grow­ing demand from gov­ern­ments through­out the world for more ‘bang for buck’ from their sci­en­tif­ic research invest­ments, strate­gic tar­get­ing of CETs will like­ly inten­si­fy, with increased expec­ta­tions for break­through results. How­ev­er, real­is­ing the poten­tial of these tech­nolo­gies requires address­ing sev­er­al inter­con­nect­ed chal­lenges. First, devel­op­ing inter­dis­ci­pli­nary high-tech tal­ent requires rethink­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing approach­es to fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion across tra­di­tion­al dis­ci­pli­nary bound­aries. Sec­ond, attract­ing invest­ment cap­i­tal that accepts high tech­ni­cal risk and extend­ed devel­op­ment time­lines remains dif­fi­cult with­in con­ven­tion­al fund­ing struc­tures. Third, secur­ing infra­struc­ture access depends on cross-sec­tor part­ner­ships between gov­ern­ment, acad­e­mia, and indus­try; rela­tion­ships that require sus­tained com­mit­ment and align­ment of incentives.

The New Mex­i­co Tech exam­ple illus­trates how these chal­lenges can be addressed through coor­di­nat­ed approach­es com­bin­ing research facil­i­ties, cross-sec­tor part­ner­ships, and mul­ti-lev­el tal­ent devel­op­ment. By con­nect­ing sci­en­tif­ic achieve­ment with prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions, such ecosys­tems can inform pub­lic-pri­vate invest­ment deci­sions and accel­er­ate tech­nol­o­gy com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion. Suc­cess in the emerg­ing space econ­o­my and relat­ed tech­nol­o­gy sec­tors will ulti­mate­ly depend on how effec­tive­ly nations and regions address these fun­da­men­tal chal­lenges while fos­ter­ing inno­va­tion across pub­lic and pri­vate domains. The con­tin­ued expan­sion of space activ­i­ties, com­bined with advances in Crit­i­cal and Emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, sug­gests that the com­ing decades will see sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments in how human­i­ty access­es and uses space—developments that will be shaped as much by pol­i­cy choic­es and insti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments as by tech­no­log­i­cal capabilities.

Dr Has­sana­lian acknowl­edges the sup­port of: the US NSF; New Mex­i­co Space Grant; NASA; Alpha Foun­da­tion; NIOSH-CDC; New Mex­i­co CONSORTIUM; and SciVista.