Space Industry Sectors
To help Alaska Space readers further understand the space industry, we have broken it down into common industry terms. It's much bigger than people realize, especially when we start to break it down into different parts and pieces.
There are 4 parties that make up the space industry: Government, Other Governments, Institutional, and Commercial.
Government
This is the national government running it's own programs like NASA, Department of Defense, NOAA, National Security Agency, etc.
Other Governments
This is industry from other governments set up in your region, often through ground stations or joint government projects.
Institutional
This is typically educational institutions and native corporations that often utilize government contracts to perform research and development, manufacturing, and operations.
Commercial
This is made up of citizen-owned companies that don't have as much oversight as the government. This allows for an increase in innovation, research and development, and manufacturing.
Space Industry Sectors
Space industry sectors are broken down into 3 main parts: Upstream, Midstream, and Downstream. The four parties of the industry can each fill any of these sectors in some fashion.
UPSTREAM
Upstream refers to infrastructure, manufacturing, launch service, spacecraft, deep space, colonization, and in-space economy. Basically its everything that is going into space or helping things get to space or operating/living in space.
MIDSTREAM
Midstream refers to Earth-based space defense infrastructure and any ground segments (such as ground stations). This is where we obtain information from the downstream.
DOWNSTREAM
Downstream refers to communications, Earth observation (EO), Position Navigation & Timing (PNT), and Space Tracking & Surveillance Systems. This is where we collect data.
Technology Layer
There are also 3 layers of technology that may get referenced. These are distribution, infrastructure, and applications.
Distribution
This is the distribution of objects, mainly satellites. The main type of satellites are GEOINT, GPS, and SatCom.
Infrastructure
This refers to manufacturing and components, launch, logistics, stations, industrial, and lunar. These are all of the hardware, physical components, and logistics for the space industry.
Applications
Space Capital, 2025 Q2 Report
This is software that can utilize data gathered from space. This could be everyday software such as Google Maps or weather information, but it could also be very specialized scientific software or software utilized by the government. This is also software onboard any spacecraft that tells it what data to gather.