Overview
Space is no longer merely a domain of scientific exploration or symbolic national achievement; it has become one of the most important arenas of strategic competition in the twenty-first century. The growing global dependence on satellites for communications, navigation, remote sensing, environmental monitoring, financial services, and defense applications demonstrates that space infrastructures have become integral components of modern power architectures.
The Space Technologies Program examines the strategic role of space in global power dynamics, security, and technological development. It explores how the ability to access, utilize, and control space technologies influences the position of states within the international system.
A central focus of this program is the concept of space power and the capabilities that shape it, including launch capacity, satellite development, remote sensing, satellite communications, positioning systems, commercial space services, and emerging orbital technologies.
Recent developments have demonstrated that space competition is no longer limited to traditional government programs. The growing role of private companies, the commercialization of space services, the emergence of a new space economy, and the increasing importance of satellite-generated data have fundamentally transformed the structure of this domain. Alongside new economic and scientific opportunities, these developments have created complex challenges related to space security, orbital traffic management, technological dependencies, and great power competition.
The program also explores the relationship between space technologies and other strategic domains, including national security, critical infrastructure, climate change, smart agriculture, digital connectivity, and crisis management.
From CTST’s perspective, space represents one of the new frontiers of technological power—an arena where access to capabilities, control over infrastructures, and the ability to generate and utilize space-based data increasingly shape the position of actors in the future global order.
Key questions
- How have space technologies evolved from a scientific and exploratory domain into a major component of national power and geopolitical competition?
- What factors determine a country’s ability to develop and sustain space power, and how does this capability influence strategic security and autonomy?
- How will the commercialization of space and the growing role of private actors reshape the future of the space economy, orbital governance, and great power competition?