Switching between worlds apart: Negotiating European space sector cultures through innovation

Abstract

Abstract With the advent of the so-called New Space Age, promoted by private actors and driven by market logic innovation, the European space sector meets significant challenges over recent years. This article explores the implications of New Space’s emergence for contemporary societies that increasingly rely on space technologies as critical infrastructures. It does so by analyzing conflicting logics of innovation within the sector arising from a clash of Old Space and New Space cultures and associated role identities. To this end, it combines concepts of institutional culture and role identity from science and technology studies and organization studies. Tracing the identity work performed by members of the European space sector through qualitative interviews, it concludes that new demands of market logic innovation are negotiated within a mode of switching between different sector cultures. It concludes that this mode provides opportunities for the responsible future governance of critical space infrastructures.