The 3x3 Space Economy

The 3×3 Space Economy Map is a simple way to understand where value is created in space. It breaks the industry into three market domains: communications, navigation, and Earth observation and three infrastructure layers: physical space assets, ground/distribution systems, and software/application businesses.

The key idea is that value often expands as you move “right” and “up”: satellites and hardware are capital-intensive, while applications built on space data, like broadband services, GPS-enabled apps, climate analytics, fleet tracking, insurance, and agriculture intelligence, can reach much larger end markets with better scalability.

Source: This framing is based on The Space Economy: Capitalize on the Greatest Business Opportunity of Our Lifetime by Chad Anderson, published by Wiley in 2023. The book emphasizes that the modern space economy is not just rockets and satellites, but also the commercial value created through GPS, geospatial intelligence/Earth observation, and satellite communications across broader industries.