A comprehensive assessment of space R&D activities and their pervasiveness in other domains

The space economy has historically been synonymous with innovation, with extensive R&D activities and numerous technologies developed in this field extending beyond their original applications, thereby bringing significant benefits to both other industries and people’s daily lives. Over the past decades, the domain has experienced significant transformations not only at a technological level but also in its value chain structures and business models. Furthermore, these changes have had a substantial impact on the innovative activity and society, as demonstrated by the diffusion of open innovation and R&D practices and the growth of the adoption of space technologies and patents in non-space sectors. Given the critical role of technological advancements in shaping the space economy and their broader economic and social impact, understanding how the above-mentioned dynamics influence the innovation rate, quality and diffusion (across application domains and geographical areas) is of paramount importance. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to analyse the innovation activities and trends in the space economy. In particular, the research aims to (1) analyse innovative activity in the space economy, covering the entire value chains, and (2) address the innovative activity of companies involved in space activities. First, we analyse 357,945 patents filed between 2000 and 2022 with worldwide coverage to gain a general overview. Secondly, to assess the second objective, we examined the innovative activity of Italian companies involved in the space economy. We analysed 1,033 patents from Italian space companies, providing both quantitative and qualitative assessments. Data collection relied on a taxonomy of the Italian space industry consisting of 496 companies and research institutions. For both worldwide and country-specific levels, we evaluate the innovative activity, enabling the assessment of the innovative dynamics and the connections with other technological and application domains. We also apply the Innovation Patent Index (IPI), a measure of innovation performance representative of innovative capacity, providing a qualitative perspective on innovation in the domain. We validate the results through interviews with senior managers from space and non-space companies involved in the innovation activities. We discuss space innovation rate and quality across different dimensions: longitudinal, territorial (i.e. geographical extensions), space value chains, and technological domains.