Space 4.0 – a common, democratic European space, part 2

Abstract

Today we are in a period of explosion of business taking advantage of the new opportunities offered by the new environment of economically open space. The period, sometimes called Space 4.0, is a paradigm shift, with changes in motivation and understanding, actors, and technology. For over a dozen years, under the name NewSpace, a revolution has been taking place in the space sector with the participation of new players, schools and universities, new commercial entrepreneurs and businesses. NewSpace entered the area traditionally occupied by OldSpace – government space agencies and large companies, testing new possibilities. These possibilities include new services, e.g. using data transmission from space, regarding communication, precise navigation, agriculture, surveillance, mapping, geology, climate, space weather, environmental monitoring, and security. The transformation of OldSpace into NewSpace was associated with the business risk of changing old, conservative business models into completely new ones, unknown in this area. The transformation is related to the need to maintain the changes in a reasonable legal system so as not to experience the „Wild West” again, this time in space. It is currently difficult to establish strict rules regarding the still distant colonization of Mars, but undoubtedly establishing rules for the use of the LEO area, i.e. the already crowded low Earth orbits, is becoming an increasingly urgent necessity. In the context of competition and technological cooperation between giga-regions, international cooperation, combating old prejudices and establishing equal opportunities, under the umbrella of social acceptance, we are building in Europe, not without difficulties, a common, democratic space.

Keywords

• space policies
• space 4.0 project
• european space agency
• space democratization
• space and satellite engineering