National space agencies
The scope and role of space agencies is evolving, to better match an ever increasing downstream reach of space.
Space Agencies have been critical to the development of the space sector. They have focus R&D efforts and provided support to the development of a space industry via procurements to the broader economy. Space Agencies are now required to assume new roles in relation to an evolving space environment. Indeed, the space sector is increasing its reach into downstream industries and associated value chains. This leads to the concept of Space Economy, generally defined as the ensemble of core space activities and all enabled revenues, services, benefits and applications into the broader economy. With an increasing number of industries concerned, and potential users, there is an increasing need to structure the country-level governance in a way that maximises the growth of the space economy.
Therefore, from mainly technology and space assets development and procurement institutions, space agencies are transitioning towards entities looking also at market development, market needs and economics as well
In addition, space agencies transition towards a more distributed governance with other ministries and agencies with broader scope, or with non-space sectorial scope, taking up some role in the space economy. This creates a need for a tighter coordination at country level.
