OP
Orbital ProgressMARKET FORMATION // SPACE ECONOMY
MARKET SIGNAL · 01
MARKET SIGNAL · 01

One company has fully cleared the missions-to-market threshold. The structural conditions that made it possible have not generalized.

What launch tells you about every other space market.

The first application of the Market Maturity Index. Launch is the most visible missions-to-market transition in the space economy — and one of the only ones that has fully cleared the threshold. The question, for every other segment, is whether the structural conditions that made it possible can hold elsewhere.

The findings, in three numbers

By the numbers.

Three figures the institute publishes alongside this analysis. Each finding is load-bearing on a number, and each number has a source.

Global launch growth · 15 yrs
orbital launches · 2009→2024
Global orbital launches roughly quadrupled over fifteen years. By any conventional measure, launch arrived as a market.
Cost compression · LEO · USD per kg
10×
order-of-magnitude reduction
Cost per kilogram to low Earth orbit has compressed by more than an order of magnitude. The cost floor moved.
SpaceX share of global volume
50%
of all global launches · 2024–25
A single company accounts for more than half of global launch volume. The market is real. It is also concentrated.
01 ·

Commercial space isn't about contract structure. It's about behavior.

The space sector routinely conflates contract labels with market reality. A company with a fixed-price government contract calls itself “commercial.” A segment with rising revenue gets described as a “growing market.” But labels do not determine market structure. Behavior does. The Market Maturity Index measures two observable dimensions — supplier behavior and buyer behavior — and lets the quadrant position report the verdict.