2016
2016 – U.S. National Security Workforce – Snapshot
The U.S. national security space workforce is composed of federal employees working across all branches of the Department of Defense as well as the intelligence agencies. Together, there are more…
2016 – U.S. Human Launch – Snapshot
The United States is approaching its sixth year without a space launch vehicle capable of transporting humans to space and back. NASA has instead…
2016 – Government Space Budgets – Snapshot
Total global government space budgets in 2016 were $## billion, a ##% decrease from $## billion in 2015.
2016 – Russia Human Launch – Snapshot
Russia continued to be the only nation ferrying humans to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2016 with its…
2016 – China Human Launch – Snapshot
China was one of two nations with human space launch vehicles active in 2016. After a three-year hiatus, China launched its…
2016 – ESA: SSA – Snapshot
As more European-made satellites are launched into Earth’s orbit, more Europeans are realizing the importance of space traffic management (STM) and space situational awareness (SSA). The European Space Agency (ESA) continued to fund its own SSA program through 2016, which involves…
2016 – Canada: Sapphire and NEOSSat – Snapshot
Two low Earth orbiting Canadian satellites, Sapphire and NEOSSat, provided spaceborne space situational awareness (SSA) for Canada during 2016. While they are both SSA satellites, they fulfill different SSA missions. Sapphire, a Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) satellite launched in 2013, is a part of the Canadian Space…
2016 – NASA Workforce – Snapshot
Like the industry as a whole, NASA’s workforce has experienced steady ## in size. From the start of FY 1993, the earliest date for which data is available in NASA’s…
2016 – U.S. Commercial Space Surveillance – Snapshot
With increased demands for space traffic management (STM) and space situational awareness (SSA), commercial companies, such as Schafer Corporation, formed businesses during 2016 to meet the demand. These commercial STM and SSA providers are building their own space object catalogs and using commercial sensor networks to…
2016 – U.S.: ATRR, GSSAP, ANGELS, and SBSS – Snapshot
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) continued adding space situational awareness (SSA) satellites to the nation’s operational military SSA satellite inventory during 2016. By the end of the year, seven satellites made up the nation’s unclassified SSA fleet. These were the Automated Navigation and Guidance Experiment for Local Space (ANGELS), Advanced Technology…