I mentioned in my previous post that Professor Justin Evans and I are currently researching and writing a new “space markets” paper, which is tentatively titled “Space Auctions and the Tragedy of the Outer Space Commons“. Our new paper builds on my previous work “Outer Space Auctions?“, which was published earlier this year in Volume 48 of the Annals of Air and Space Law. So, why are we writing a sequel, so to speak? The reason why is because three new developments in space markets have occurred — two of them as recently as this month:

1. Earlier this month, the U.S. Space Force (USSF) released a report titled “Commercial Space Strategy“, which is dated 8 April 2024 and is available here. Among other things, this report identifies eight separate “mission areas” where the Space Force will buy the services, data, and products it needs from the commercial space industry instead of trying to build those capabilities itself.
2. Not to be outdone by the Space Force, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) released its own “Commercial Space Integration Strategy” document on 2 April 2024 (available here), which identifies no less than 13(!) mission areas where the Pentagon will consider buying products, data, and services from the commercial space industry.
3. The third important development occurred on 6 September 2023 (while I was still writing my first “orbit auctions” paper), when the RAND Corporation released its own report, which is titled “Leveraging Commercial Space Services: Opportunities and Risks for the Department of the Air Force” and is available here.

In short, it suffices to say (for now) that these developments are super-exciting and have thus motivated Justin and I to write up our new space markets paper. Stay tuned: I will have more to say about each one of these three reports — the Space Force’s, the DoD’s, and RAND’s — starting on Monday …