United Kingdom
Astronaut and Mission Count for Top Nations
Public astronauts typically complete multiple missions in space over their careers — 65% have two or more flights compared to only 9% of private space travelers. Retired NASA astronaut Frederick “CJ” Sturckow remains the only person to have visited space eight times.
SNAPSHOT: Human Spaceflight
From the early days of the space race, sending humans to space has always been a key priority. The International Space Station (ISS) has maintained a continuous human presence in orbit for more than 20 years, and microgravity research on space stations has provided valuable insight for future long-term human missions in space.
Spaceport Development: Progress is Slow, but Global Interest is Strong
As the pace of small satellite development and global launches continues to accelerate, nations around the world are developing spaceport policies and courting launch providers and other space industries with the intent of expanding their access space.
Per Nation Mass Share of an Estimated 973,000 KG, 2022
Operators deployed ~421 spacecraft with a mass of 200 kg or less, 18% of all deployed spacecraft in 2022. SpaceX’s Starlink satellites comprised over half the spacecraft mass deployed in 2022. The company’s Starlink deployments added up to 518,523 kg, nearly double the 257,140 kg it deployed in 2021. The largest spacecraft deployed during 2022 was Lockheed Martin’s Orion space capsule (25,848 kg), deployed during NASA’s first Artemis/Space Launch System launch.
United Kingdom Space Budget, 2005-2021
The United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) is an executive agency of the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the United Kingdom’s civil space program.
Pressure Ramps Up for New Vehicle Launches Pushed from 2022 to 2023
The list of launch vehicles set for maiden flights in 2023 may sound familiar. It’s mostly the same group of launch vehicles initially slated to fly in 2022.
European Space Industry Employment, 2011-2021
European space employment was 53,051 in 2021, an increase of 5.4% from the total of 50,317 from 2020. This estimate is based on analysis by Eurospace, the trade association of the European Space Industry. The analysis focuses on the space manufacturing industry; space services companies such as Ariane- space, SES, Eutelsat, and Inmarsat which also employ thousands of individuals, are not included.
Europe Continues to Lead in Global Workforce Job Growth
The space industry relies on skilled individuals from a wide variety of fields to enable the cutting-edge developments taking place in this sector. While many countries do not regularly produce metrics on the size of their workforce, these data are available for several major space actors, including the United States, Europe, Japan, and India.
Rivals Launch Military Satellites Amid U.S.-led Space Defense Drills
A flurry of military and intelligence satellite launches by rival powers this month came as the United States and two dozen partner nations wrapped up the largest global space defense wargame in history.
Russia launched what some leaders have described as a spy satellite for Iran and its own on-orbit snooping satellite Cosmos-2558, which is circling Earth in an orbit conspicuously close to a recently launched U.S. National Reconnaissance Office satellite, a Netherlands researcher confirmed.
ESA Sending Heroic, Fictional Sheep Aboard Artemis I
NASA says its Artemis I flight set to launch as soon as late August will be an uncrewed lunar fly-by. The Paris-based European Space Agency would beg to differ. Shaun is leaving the happy confines of Mossy Bottom Farm to lead the flight around the Moon, an agency press release announced.