Top five trends that will dominate the spacetech industry in 2023

Here are the top five trends that will dominate the spacetech industry in the coming year.

Consolidation and verticalisation: Well capitalized space companies will acquire/merge with companies that might not have the dry powder to weather through the economic and investment downturn that the world is seeing. Or, to become stronger together in the quest to come out the other side relatively unscathed.

With the world continuing to see supply chain issues due to Covid-19, and more recently through the war, well capitalised companies will start acquiring companies or start building things in-house to reduce the dependencies on a fickle supply chain globally. We'll also see more companies keeping their procurement needs within their own countries.

More focus on orbital debris mitigation: With the FCC recently adopting a 5-year de-orbiting rule for satellites and more grants being allotted to debris removal efforts, more focus will be on solutions that can help keep space safe for decades to come.

More downstream EO companies: 2023 will see a continuation of many more downstream analytics companies building for their own geographies and niche use cases as more satellite imagery continues to beam down than ever before.

More focus on earth-related use cases: Although the deep space missions will continue to garner eyeballs, the focus will shift more towards technologies that can help create a more sustainable or transparent world. Climate change, forestry and carbon use cases will be prioritised. Better and more unique datasets such as hyperspectral, thermal, SAR will see higher growth than multispectral/RGB imaging.

More and bigger rockets: With Starship poised to fly in 2023 as well as the SLS, the rockets get ever bigger bringing the cost of launch per kg even lower. Many more rocket companies around the globe will see their first orbital launches come to fruition which will lead to a rocket-themed game of thrones as the rocket companies vie for the same set of customers sending satellites into space.

-- Awais Ahmed, CEO, Pixxel.