The Space Safety Economy

A Better Satellite World campaign exploring whether space safety is becoming a self-sustaining economic layer of the space industry.

As orbital activity accelerates, SSPI is asking who has the resources, incentives, and business models to build, operate, and sustain the systems that make space activity safer, more resilient, and more scalable.

This campaign explores three core questions:

• Who pays for space safety? From orbital debris mitigation and deorbiting to space situational awareness, servicing readiness, insurance, and risk management.
• Where is the economy emerging? Across monitoring, analytics, intervention, servicing, resilience, operational support, standards, and financial instruments.
• What does space safety enable? Longer-lived assets, more reliable infrastructure, expanded human activity in space, lunar operations, investor confidence, and new commercial services.

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Explore the Campaign

Through podcasts, articles, videos, events, and conversations with industry leaders, The Space Safety Economy examines how safety capabilities are built, funded, delivered, and sustained, and what role they may play in humanity’s future in space.

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Podcast: Are We There Yet? Episode 5:

In earlier episodes of Are We There Yet?, we’ve interrogated the space safety economy through the lens of insurance, infrastructure, communications and the challenge of shared orbital systems. In this episode, Carol brings the conversation inside the mission itself.

A satellite that fails on orbit is not only a failed mission. It is lost value for customers, lost confidence for operators and potentially one more object in an already crowded orbital environment.

Carol shares what Sidus Space has learned from operating three LizzieSat missions, why the company designed its satellites to be software-defined from the start, and how on-orbit learning feeds directly back into future spacecraft design.

Podcast: Are We There Yet? Episode 4: The Lighthouse Problem in Space

Podcast: Are We There Yet? Episode 3: Dialing 911 in Space

Today we continue Are We There Yet?, SSPI's podcast series exploring the Space Safety Economy.

Our guest is Toni Spatola, Chief Commercial Officer of Filtronic.

The conversation begins with one of the most memorable moments of Artemis II: the 40-minute communications blackout that occurred as Orion passed behind the Moon. From there, Toni helps us explore a much bigger question:

What infrastructure must exist before humanity can safely operate beyond Earth orbit?

We discuss:

• Why the Artemis blackout occurred
• LunaNet and ESA's Moonlight initiative
• Lunar communications and navigation infrastructure
• Public-private partnerships in space development
• Why communications may be a foundational element of the Space Safety Economy
• How future lunar operators may purchase communications and positioning services much as we use cellular networks and GPS today

New York Space Business Roundtable: Safety, Capital, and What Happens After Artemis?

Artemis has returned human spaceflight to the Moon. Attention is now turning to what follows — how activity between Earth and the Moon develops, where opportunity begins to take shape, and how safety and operational readiness influence participation. 

This rebroadcast of the May edition of the New York Space Business Roundtable, brings together perspectives from industry, finance, and policy to examine what is forming now, what signals matter to investors and operators, and how organizations are positioning themselves in response. This session explores: Where early opportunity is taking shape What signals matter to investors and operators How safety and reliability influence decision-making How organizations are positioning themselves for what comes next 

Featured speakers include: 

• Shatel Bhakta, ESDMD SAO Lunar Architecture Team Lead, NASA
• Stephen Eisele, CEO, Lonestar Data Holdings
• Jessica Gregory, VP, Civil Space Programs, Voyager Technologies
• Zack Hester, Head of U.S. Office, Novaspace
• Paolo Pino, Co-Founder & CTO, Volta Space Technologies
   

Podcast: Are We There Yet? Episode 1 – Does the Space Safety Economy Exist Yet?

Does a true Space Safety Economy already exist, or is it still emerging?

In Episode 1 of Are We There Yet?, Tamara Bond-Williams interviews Rob Scheige of WTW about space insurance, satellite insurance, orbital debris, space risk management, satellite servicing, and the economics of safer operations in orbit.

They discuss why hardware failure remains a larger insurance concern than collision risk, how insurers think about catastrophic orbital events, and what market signals would show that a scalable Space Safety Economy has arrived.

A timely conversation for leaders across the space economy, satellite industry, NewSpace, and space sustainability. 

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