Book chapter 2023
Research Handbook on the Governance of Projects Edward Elgar Publishing · pp. 411–428
The shift from Old Space to New Space changes program governance from predominantly government-led arrangements toward public-private and private-led models, with ownership, requirements, costs, risks and revenue logic evolving together.
Space-program governance has evolved as commercial actors, digital technologies and new end users have expanded the boundaries of the space sector. This chapter compares Old Space and New Space governance and explains how the roles of governments, space agencies and private organizations change as programmes move from publicly financed infrastructure toward partnership and market-oriented models. It identifies three archetypical governance arrangements and the industrial dynamics that reinforce their evolution.
How and why is space-program governance evolving from the Old Space paradigm toward New Space governance models?
The chapter combines governance and project literature with a substantial body of empirical material collected through the authors’ research activities in the Space Economy Observatory. The empirical basis includes more than 50 interviews with managers and officers, more than 10 workshops, and continuing involvement with public and private actors in the space sector. This material is used to compare governance configurations and explain the forces underlying their evolution.
Traditional space programmes place ownership, financing, sponsorship and major risks with government and space agencies. Agencies define detailed requirements and commission contractors to deliver infrastructure primarily for institutional, scientific or strategic objectives.
As commercial markets develop, governance can move toward public-private partnerships in which costs and risks are shared, or toward privately led and owned programmes in which commercial organizations assume greater responsibility and seek market revenues from broader end-user bases.
Commercial interest, new investors, digital technologies and new end users push agencies toward new governance arrangements. Those arrangements in turn stimulate private investment, innovation, broader programme scope and new markets, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of sector and governance evolution.
The chapter provides an early framework for understanding governance change in the New Space Economy. Instead of examining governance as a static configuration, it shows how ownership, sponsorship, contracting, requirements, costs, risks and revenues evolve as the industrial context changes.
For agencies and companies, the three archetypes clarify the trade-offs among public control, private incentives, innovation, risk sharing and commercial value creation. The framework also provides the conceptual foundation for later empirical work on Transitional, Legacy and New Space governance models.
Paravano, A., Locatelli, G., & Trucco, P. (2023). Evolution of space programs governance. In R. Müller, S. Sankaran, & N. Drouin (Eds.), Research Handbook on the Governance of Projects (pp. 411–428). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781802208078.00043
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