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Eurospace publishes the 2024 update of its facts & figures statistical series

Eurospace publishes the 2024 update of its facts & figures statistical series [Jul/2024]

Eurospace, established in 1961, is the trade association of the European space industry. The annually published Eurospace facts & figures statistical series focuses on assessing the economic value of industrial activities associated with the design, development, and manufacturing of space systems (also called the upstream segment) in Europe.

The 2024 edition reports statistics on the global context, including macro trends in space infrastructure markets and trends in institutional and commercial programmes. Furthermore, it outlines consolidated European space budgets and the main results of the facts & figures annual survey.

In terms of the global context, 1,500 tons of spacecraft mass were launched in 2023, up from 1,000 tons in 2022, with 95% of the growth driven by Starlink. The global spacecraft and launch markets are dominated by the US and China with a joint market share of 70% in both markets.

Key trends in institutional programmes show recent growth in institutional spacecraft mass launched since 2020, supported by human spaceflight programmes (the Chinese Space Station and Artemis) and remote sensing missions. In 2023, 70% of institutional spacecraft mass launched was for civil programmes, while 30% was for military programmes. However, while the former has experienced a decreasing trend since 2020, the latter has shown growth due significant catch up in military satellites by China.

Commercial programmes continue to experience growth in spacecraft mass launched. However, this increase is solely driven by Starlink.

Regarding funding aspects, the European upstream budget totalled almost €11 billion in 2023, which includes national budgets of about €9 billion and the EU space budget of €2 billion. Of the total, almost two-thirds were managed by ESA.

The main results of the facts & figures survey reveal that the European space industry has experienced limited annual sales growth of €200 million, reaching a total of €8.4 billion in 2023. While the industry has partially recovered from the Covid-19 sales drop, some market segments are still affected by a structural slowdown. In contrast to the sluggish sales increase, employment in the industry has considerably increased in recent years, reaching more than 62,500 full-time employees in 2023. This growth is primarily driven by New Space start-ups that have recently entered the industry.

For more information and results of the survey, the press release of the 2024 facts & figures update can be accesses here (please log into the ESA Space Economy website before).

More information about Eurospace and its annual survey can be found here.


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