The impact of the new space economy on sustainability: an overview

The first overarching objective of the Space Agenda 2030 is to strengthen the role of the space sector as a major driver of sustainable development. To achieve this objective, the European Space Agency launched already 10+ years ago the ESA Business Applications Programme to foster the adoption of space technologies in non-space sectors, promoting the development of commercial satellite-based projects (i.e., projects developing business applications based on Earth Observation, Satcom and Navigation satellite technologies and data) and contributing to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While space technologies undeniably offer substantial societal benefits, there exists an opportunity to provide professionals and academics with a comprehensive perspective on the ongoing progress of commercial satellite-based projects in their vital role in advancing the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and tackling Grand Challenges. Our research aims to clarify commercial satellite-based applications' direct and indirect impacts on SDGs and their features contributing to achieving them. We develop a taxonomy of the ESA Business Applications programme portfolio, analysing 603 commercial satellite-based applications developed between 2014 and 2022 across 34 variables (including SDGs directly or indirectly impacted), sourced from the program's web pages. We perform descriptive statistics and exploratory data analysis to present commercial satellite-based applications' direct or indirect impact on the 169 SDG targets. Finally, we describe the features of commercial satellite-based projects (e.g., geographical scope, satellite technology adopted, non-space domains of application) contributing to the SDGs' achievement. Our results show that 603 commercial satellite-based applications impact at least one SDG. Overall, SGD3 is the most impacted (136, 22%), followed by SDG11 (105, 17%) and SDG2 (78, 12%). 257 Earth Observation-based applications mostly impact SDG2 (58, 23%), SDG15 (38, 15%) and SDG11 (34, 13%). 230 Satellite Navigation-based applications mostly impact SDG3 (68, 30%), SDG11 (52, 23%) and SDG6 (22, 10%). 116 Satellite communication-based applications mostly impact SDG3 (33, 28%), SDG11 (16, 14%) and SDG4 (15, 13%). Moreover, we identify 14 application domains, and for each of them, we investigate their impact on SDGs. The application domains that mainly impact SDGs are Health (91, 16%), Food and Agriculture (85,15%), and Energy (51, 9%). Our research demonstrates and strengthens the space sector's role as a major driver of sustainable development. Researchers may adopt the methodology in other contexts, overcoming the geographical and data accessibility limitations of our research.