Space Economy and Sustainability: A Systematic Review

The space economy is booming thanks to the increasing investment of government agencies, private companies, and venture capitalists. From the beginning of the New Space era, the array of actors involved in the development of technologies for extra-terrestrial activities has increased, as well as the downstream applications that foster innovations on Earth. Space technologies promote growth and prosperity: they pose challenges and opportunities in terms of sustainability from multiple perspectives. In outer space, several issues can hinder launches or the capabilities of observing and collecting data (e.g., presence of debris, regulatory and legal issues), while there is room to improve the technical and economic efficiency of operations; on Earth, technologies developed to support space missions and satellite data provide support to human development and help monitoring climate change. The literature dealing with space sciences is extremely varied, from materials and physics for the launch of probes, to management of missions, or the coordination of international activities. The aim of this study is to investigate whether and how studies in the space economy area addressed the topic of sustainability through a systematic literature review. This article analyses 254 articles along multiple dimensions, including the three pillars of sustainability and the sustainable development goals. The studies are categorized according to their main locus of research (i.e., in Space and on Earth) and then grouped in thematic clusters. In doing so, this article provides an overview of the state of the art, highlights potential gaps, and proposes fruitful avenues for future research.