Taxonomy of market-level space organizations

Abstract

Academic and industry experts build their careers on accurate and precise definitions and meanings of domain-specific terminology, whereas novice practitioners and lay-persons often conflate similar or similar-sounding terms to describe concepts in the same domain of interest. This is common in the space sector when individuals of different academic or practitioner backgrounds discuss “commercial” topics. In English, as in other languages, the word “space” is often followed by words such as “industry,” “industry segment,” “industrial base,” “market,” “ecosystem” and others. The practice of casually using words with ambiguous meanings may often be appropriate for informal discussion if it facilitates the communication and exchange of ideas and all parties generally understand the implications of the casual usage. This practice, however, is problematic for detailed and analytical applications requiring precision and order of thought. Grounded in contemporary organization theory and economic practice, this paper provides background discussions of different levels of analysis that characterize embedded hierarchical social systems of organizations as they pertain to space. This paper then recommends a hierarchical taxonomy for defining specific terms that describe organizations and activities within the space domain for use by practitioners, analysts and academics requiring more precise language to communicate their market analysis ideas. This taxonomy places specific terms within each level of analysis discussed and provides definitions of each, with the intention of stimulating critical discussion and potential modifications or improvements.