Brighton, September 7 (HNA) – US investment bank Goldman Sachs, in its report titled “The Second Space Age: How Markets, Technology and Power Are Reshaping the Final Frontier?” forecasts that the global space economy will reach $1.8 trillion by 2035, driven by falling launch costs and private-sector growth.
It predicts that the “Second Space Age” will reach $1.8 trillion by 2035, growing faster than global GDP, and that launch costs have fallen from approximately $55,000 per kilogram during the Space Shuttle era to just thousands of dollars today thanks to the reusability of rockets, Goldman Sachs emphasises that space has now become a “corporate asset class”. The US bank explains that this argument stems from a structural shift whereby space is transforming from a state-supported frontier into a fundamental industrial infrastructure.
Goldman Sachs notes that more than $55 billion in capital flowed into the space ecosystem in 2025, and that a record $36 billion was invested in the first quarter of 2026 alone.
As the world progresses into an age of orbital industrialization, the distinction between space infrastructure and terrestrial infrastructure will continue to dissolve, according to the report. The organizations and nations that recognize this early and position themselves accordingly will help define the shape of the economy that follows. The future of space will stretch beyond the bounds of current imagination.
The modern space economy is structured into two primary segments: upstream and downstream. The upstream segment encompasses the manufacturing and deployment of space assets, including satellite production, launch services, and ground infrastructure. Conversely, the downstream segment focuses on the operational utility of these assets, delivering space-enabled services that support a vast range of terrestrial activities. These capabilities—spanning Earth observation, global communications, object tracking, and precision PNT—serve a diverse array of end users from nearly every global industry.