Why Is the U.S. Government Rethinking How It Measures the Space Economy?

Key Takeaways

• Federal statistics capture space activity differently, producing figures that resist direct comparison.
• Better metrics could improve policy, investment, supply-chain planning, and regional development.
• Measurement must separate direct space production from industries that depend on space services.

A New Federal Study Targets the Measurement Gap

On September 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Space Commerce requested proposals for a study designed to establish a government-verifiable framework for measuring the American commercial space sector. The department wants defined metrics that can support recurring federal assessments beginning in fiscal year 2027.

The planned study examines the size, growth, health, competitiveness, resilience, and productive capacity of commercial space activity. It will also review the accuracy, coverage, and comparability of existing statistics. Proposals were due September 17, 2026, and the procurement was issued as a total small-business set-aside under North American Industry Classification System code 541720, which covers research and development in the social sciences and humanities.

The solicitation addresses a persistent policy problem. The United States can count rockets, satellites, employees, contracts, exports, and venture investments, but those measures do not automatically produce a complete or consistent picture of the space economy. Each dataset answers a different question, covers a different boundary, and follows its own reporting schedule.

A launch provider’s revenue clearly belongs inside most definitions of the sector. The classification becomes harder for an electronics manufacturer that earns 8% of its sales from satellite components, a cloud company that processes Earth observation imagery, or a farm-management platform that uses positioning signals. Whether their activity should count depends on the purpose of the measurement.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis already publishes a Space Economy Satellite Account that estimates the sector’s contribution to gross domestic product, employment, compensation, and output. Industry associations publish revenue-based estimates. Consulting firms release forecasts. State and municipal development agencies track companies and jobs within their jurisdictions. Investment analysts examine private funding and public-market valuations.

These products can all be valid without producing the same number. Differences often reflect scope rather than arithmetic mistakes. One estimate may count direct space hardware and services. Another may include businesses whose products depend on satellite communications, navigation, or weather data. A third may include government budgets, research spending, or the economic activity supported by space-enabled infrastructure.

The Office of Space Commerce is seeking a measurement system suited to recurring policy use. That requires more than another headline market figure. Federal decision-makers need indicators that reveal where productive capacity exists, how companies connect through supply chains, whether investment reaches firms beyond a few dominant providers, and how exposed the sector is to production bottlenecks or foreign dependencies.

Better statistics will not eliminate disagreements about the boundaries of the space economy. They can make those boundaries explicit and allow users to understand what each figure includes.

Defining the Space Economy Changes Its Apparent Size

The definition chosen at the start of an economic study determines much of the result. A narrow definition may include spacecraft manufacturing, launch vehicles, launch services, satellite operations, ground equipment, mission software, and dedicated research. A broader definition can add satellite-enabled communications, navigation applications, weather services, geospatial analytics, insurance, legal support, education, tourism, and financial services.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development defines the space economy broadly as activities and resources that create value and benefits through exploring, understanding, managing, and using space. That approach captures direct industrial production and economic activity supported by space-based capabilities.

Broad definitions reveal how deeply satellite services extend into terrestrial markets. Positioning, navigation, and timing signals support transportation, precision agriculture, financial transactions, cellular networks, power grids, surveying, emergency services, and consumer devices. Weather satellites support aviation, energy planning, insurance, shipping, and public safety. Satellite communications serve households, aircraft, ships, businesses, and military organizations.

Counting all revenue generated by these industries as space revenue would produce an inflated estimate. A ride-hailing service depends on satellite navigation, but most of its value comes from software, drivers, vehicles, payments, and local demand. A bank uses satellite-derived timing, yet its loan and deposit business should not be treated as space production.

The distinction is examined in New Space Economy’s space economy taxonomy, which separates backbone activity from reach industries and emerging markets. Backbone activity includes the goods and services required to build, launch, operate, and support space systems. Reach activity covers terrestrial sectors that derive value from space infrastructure. Emerging activity includes markets such as commercial space stations, lunar services, resource extraction, and orbital manufacturing that remain under development.

This structure helps prevent two errors. A narrow estimate can understate the economic influence of space by ignoring dependent industries. An expansive estimate can claim too much by assigning the full value of a terrestrial market to one enabling input.

A measurement framework can report several layers rather than forcing every activity into one total. Direct production can form the central account. Space-enabled activity can be measured separately through dependency, productivity, or exposure indicators. Emerging markets can receive their own category with clear distinctions between verified revenue, funded development, announced projects, and speculative forecasts.

The treatment of government activity creates another boundary question. Federal agencies finance science missions, national-security satellites, launch services, research programs, and infrastructure. Government procurement supports private revenue, and public laboratories produce capabilities outside ordinary commercial markets. A commercial-space assessment may count private sales to government without treating an agency’s entire budget as commercial output.

International comparison makes the problem harder. Countries organize their industries and accounts differently. Some place satellite manufacturing inside aerospace classifications, and others distribute it across electronics, communications, software, and defense. A common definition must preserve national detail without pretending that unlike datasets are identical.

Existing Statistics Provide a Strong but Incomplete Foundation

The Department of Commerce began building the Space Economy Satellite Account in 2019 through cooperation between the Office of Space Commerce and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. A satellite account rearranges information from the national economic accounts to examine an activity that crosses standard industry boundaries.

Traditional economic classifications are organized around industries such as manufacturing, telecommunications, professional services, transportation, and government. Space activity touches all of them. A satellite account identifies the relevant portions without replacing the national accounting framework.

BEA estimates gross domestic product, gross output, employment, and employee compensation associated with space-related production. Its methods draw from supply-use tables, industry data, government information, company reports, and product classifications. These measures provide consistency with the broader U.S. economy, which allows analysts to compare space activity with other sectors.

The account still depends on assumptions. A company may manufacture both satellite and non-space electronics at the same facility. Public financial statements may not separate space revenue. Industry codes may group launch vehicles with missiles or spacecraft components with other electronic products. Analysts must determine what share of mixed production belongs in the account.

Time lags present another issue. National economic statistics require collection, verification, revision, and reconciliation. A fast-moving sector can change before the most reliable numbers become available. Company announcements and contract awards arrive quickly, but they may not represent completed production or recognized revenue.

Private market reports can provide newer indicators. They may count satellite industry revenue, launches, spacecraft orders, private investment, acquisitions, or announced government budgets. Their speed and sector knowledge can complement official statistics. Their definitions, source access, and proprietary methods can limit direct comparison.

New Space Economy’s explanation of how the space economy is segmented shows why estimates differ even when analysts use credible information. Upstream, downstream, space-derived, direct, enabled, commercial, and government categories overlap in some frameworks and remain separate in others.

No single measure can answer every policy question. Gross domestic product measures value added, not total sales. Gross output includes intermediate transactions and can double-count value moving through a supply chain. Employment counts workers but says little about productivity or strategic dependence. Investment records capital commitments without proving that projects will reach operation.

The Office of Space Commerce study can build on these measures rather than replace them. A recurring dashboard could combine national-account statistics with timely operational indicators. Annual estimates might describe output and employment, and quarterly or monthly indicators could track launches, investment, orders, capacity, business formation, and procurement.

Documentation will be essential. Each metric should state its definition, data source, calculation method, geographic coverage, revision policy, limitations, and relationship to other measures. Government verification requires an evidence trail that can be repeated when personnel, contractors, or source datasets change.

Manufacturing Is Larger and Harder to Observe Than It Appears

Manufacturing accounted for 25.2% of measured U.S. space-economy gross domestic product in 2022, according to a Bureau of Economic Analysis study on plant use and production performed for a company’s own needs. That made manufacturing the largest sector within the measured account for that year.

Space manufacturing extends beyond complete rockets and satellites. It includes propulsion systems, structures, avionics, sensors, antennas, optical equipment, computers, batteries, solar arrays, thermal hardware, mechanisms, ground terminals, test equipment, and specialized materials.

Many factories serve both space and non-space customers. An electronics plant may produce components for satellites, aircraft, medical equipment, and industrial systems. An engine manufacturer may support launch vehicles and defense programs. Standard business statistics can record the factory’s total output without identifying the share related to space.

Plant utilization also matters. A facility may contain dedicated clean rooms, thermal-vacuum chambers, vibration equipment, or propulsion test infrastructure that remains idle between programs. Revenue and employment figures do not fully describe this capacity, yet the equipment may carry strategic value during a production surge.

Own-account production creates another blind spot. A vertically integrated company may manufacture satellites or launch equipment for its own constellation or service rather than selling the hardware to another company. The production creates an asset, but no external sale reveals its market value.

A company building hundreds of satellites for internal deployment may appear mainly as a communications or data-service provider. If statistics focus on merchant sales, much of its manufacturing activity can disappear. Analysts must estimate the value of labor, materials, depreciation, and capital services assigned to internal production.

New Space Economy’s analysis of hidden space-manufacturing output explains why plant-use data and own-account production affect sector estimates. These issues become more prominent as companies combine manufacturing, launch, operations, software, and services within one corporate structure.

Vertical integration also complicates supply-chain analysis. A company may buy fewer complete subsystems because it produces them internally. Public procurement databases will not reveal those internal transfers. Suppliers may still provide materials, machine tools, semiconductors, software, and testing services that are difficult to classify as space-specific.

A federal measurement framework should distinguish sales, value added, capital formation, and productive capacity. Factory revenue shows commercial activity. Value added supports comparison with national accounts. Capital expenditure indicates expansion. Capacity measures reveal whether factories can respond to higher demand.

Without these distinctions, policymakers may misread the health of the industrial base. High revenue can coexist with bottlenecks in propulsion, radiation-hardened electronics, optical systems, or skilled labor. A lower-revenue supplier may control a production process that several major programs cannot easily replace.

Employment Counts Need Occupational and Geographic Detail

A national total for space employment provides scale, but it does not reveal whether companies can hire the people needed to fulfill contracts. Space production depends on engineers, software developers, machinists, technicians, welders, program managers, quality specialists, cybersecurity personnel, operators, scientists, and regulatory professionals.

Companies often report staffing through broad industrial categories. Employees working on space and non-space programs may share the same establishment. Contractors and temporary workers may appear under professional-service firms rather than aerospace manufacturing. University researchers can contribute to missions without being classified as space workers.

Occupational data can provide a clearer picture. A recurring system could track employment by job function, education level, experience, security-clearance requirements, and geographic cluster. Vacancy duration and wage growth could indicate shortages before they become visible in delayed production.

Geography matters because the U.S. space sector is distributed unevenly. California, Colorado, Florida, Texas, Alabama, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, and other states host concentrations of companies, laboratories, ranges, military organizations, and research institutions. Smaller clusters are forming near spaceports and advanced-manufacturing centers.

A national increase can conceal local weakness. Employment may rise in launch operations and software but fall among specialized component manufacturers. One region may attract new investment as another loses experienced workers following a program cancellation or corporate consolidation.

Remote work has changed the map for software, analytics, and administrative functions, but physical production remains location-dependent. Clean rooms, test stands, launch sites, tracking stations, and secure facilities require personnel on location. Housing, transportation, schools, health care, and local infrastructure influence whether a region can support growth.

State and municipal governments need metrics suited to local decisions. Company counts alone can mislead because firms range from small consultancies to employers with thousands of workers. Announced jobs differ from filled positions, and temporary construction employment differs from permanent operations.

Payroll, establishment, and tax data can improve verification. Federal statistics could be combined with state records, company disclosures, government contracts, and anonymized surveys. Privacy protections would be required where a small number of companies dominate a region.

Workforce measurement should also examine movement between defense, civil, and commercial programs. A government contract may shift engineers from one project to another without increasing the national labor supply. Rapid hiring by a well-funded company can raise wages and weaken smaller suppliers.

Education metrics can provide early indications of future capacity. Relevant measures include engineering graduates, technical certifications, apprenticeships, security-clearance pipelines, research funding, and placement into space-related employment. Counting graduates without tracking retention can overstate the available workforce.

A credible employment framework would therefore combine headcount with occupation, location, compensation, vacancy, turnover, and training data. This approach would show where the sector is growing and whether the labor base can support that growth.

Supply-Chain Resilience Requires More Than Revenue Data

A space company can report rising sales and still depend on a single supplier for a component that takes two years to replace. Revenue statistics rarely expose such dependencies. The Office of Space Commerce has included resilience and capacity among the proposed measurement categories because economic size alone cannot describe the sector’s ability to withstand disruption.

Space systems use specialized parts produced in small volumes. Radiation-tolerant electronics, precision optics, propulsion components, high-performance materials, batteries, and test equipment may come from a limited number of qualified sources. Programs can become dependent on one factory, production line, or technical team.

Qualification requirements make substitution difficult. A component that appears commercially similar may need radiation testing, vibration testing, thermal testing, software validation, and mission-specific certification before it can replace an incumbent product. A supplier interruption can delay a spacecraft even when an alternative exists.

Foreign dependence adds trade and security exposure. Companies may import semiconductors, raw materials, machine tools, sensors, or subassemblies. Some imports come from close partners, and others may originate in countries affected by tariffs, export controls, sanctions, geopolitical tension, or transportation disruption.

Resilience metrics should identify concentration without disclosing sensitive company information. Measures could include the number of qualified suppliers per component class, geographic concentration, average lead time, inventory coverage, substitution time, import share, financial condition, and dependence on a small number of government programs.

Contract data can reveal part of this structure. Prime contractors disclose subcontracting plans, and federal spending systems record many direct awards. Yet lower-tier suppliers often remain invisible. A propulsion manufacturer may depend on a specialty chemical company that never appears in a space contract database.

Industry surveys can fill gaps, but response quality matters. Companies may hesitate to disclose vulnerabilities or customer concentration. Mandatory reporting can impose burdens on small suppliers. Anonymized collection, aggregated publication, and clear limits on data use can improve participation.

The Office of Space Commerce held a Commercial Space Supply Chain Forum in August 2026 with the Aerospace Industries Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The new measurement study can connect those industrial concerns with recurring evidence. A one-time forum identifies problems; sustained metrics show whether they improve or worsen.

Financial resilience should receive attention as well. A technically capable supplier can fail because of cash-flow gaps, delayed payments, customer concentration, or an inability to finance new equipment. Measures such as working capital, backlog quality, contract mix, funding stage, and access to credit can complement production data.

Resilience is not the same as complete domestic self-sufficiency. International suppliers can expand capacity and provide alternatives to concentrated U.S. sources. The relevant question is whether dependencies are understood, manageable, and supported by replacement options.

Investment Metrics Must Separate Commitments From Productive Results

Private investment is one of the most visible measures of commercial-space activity. Venture rounds, public offerings, acquisitions, debt placements, and strategic investments produce timely announcements and large headline figures. They are useful indicators, but they do not measure the same thing as revenue, output, or operating capacity.

A financing announcement records capital committed to a company under stated terms. It does not prove that every dollar has been transferred, invested in production, or converted into an operational service. Special-purpose acquisition company transactions and other public-market combinations can announce substantial valuations before closing.

Investment totals can also become concentrated. A small number of large rounds can create the appearance of broad sector growth even if most startups face tighter financing. Median deal size, company count, stage distribution, and follow-on funding rates can reveal conditions hidden by the total.

The source of capital matters. Venture investors, private-equity firms, corporations, sovereign funds, banks, government programs, and public markets accept different risk and time horizons. A company funded by milestone-based government contracts faces a different financing environment from one dependent on equity rounds.

Regional distribution deserves measurement. Capital can cluster around established aerospace centers and investor networks, leaving companies elsewhere dependent on grants or distant financiers. A national total says little about whether promising suppliers in emerging clusters can access funds.

Investment should be linked to results where possible. Relevant outcomes include prototypes completed, production lines opened, satellites launched, services introduced, customers acquired, revenue generated, patents issued, and employees hired. Failure and restructuring should also be recorded because capital allocation includes unsuccessful projects.

Government funding requires separate treatment. Research grants, Small Business Innovation Research awards, loan guarantees, tax incentives, procurement contracts, and direct investment can all support commercial companies. Combining them into one public-funding total would obscure differences between research support and payment for delivered services.

Foreign investment presents another dimension. It can provide capital, customer access, and manufacturing partnerships. It may also create concerns about control, intellectual property, supply chains, or national security. Measurement should identify foreign participation without assuming that every international investment presents the same risk.

A recurring framework could report gross investment, deal count, median round, stage, source, region, subsector, and capital deployment. It could distinguish announced transactions from closed financing and separate company valuation from money raised.

Such detail would help policymakers assess whether the sector is financing long development cycles or chasing short-lived market enthusiasm. It would also help businesses compare their capital access with firms at similar stages.

Competitiveness Must Be Measured Through Markets and Capabilities

Competitiveness is often reduced to national launch counts, company valuations, or total government spending. These indicators matter, but none provides a full assessment of a country’s commercial position.

A launch count can be dominated by one operator deploying its own satellites. That activity demonstrates manufacturing and operational capacity, yet it does not necessarily show the depth of independent customer demand. Revenue can come from domestic government contracts without proving success in international markets.

A better framework would examine export revenue, global market share, customer diversity, recurring sales, order backlogs, cost, reliability, delivery time, technical performance, and the number of suppliers capable of competing for major contracts.

Competitiveness also depends on business conditions. Licensing time, spectrum access, export controls, launch approvals, environmental reviews, insurance, tax treatment, and procurement rules influence the cost of bringing a product to market. Measuring those factors can show where policy creates friction.

Research and intellectual property provide another set of indicators. Patent counts alone can reward quantity over significance. Licensing income, technology transfer, research partnerships, flight demonstrations, and adoption into commercial products can offer a stronger connection to economic performance.

Market concentration requires careful treatment. A dominant company can create scale, lower costs, and strengthen international standing. Heavy concentration can also leave customers and suppliers dependent on one decision-maker. Competition metrics should examine concentration within launch, communications, Earth observation, manufacturing, and data services rather than assigning one figure to the entire sector.

New Space Economy’s analysis of whether the space economy is becoming concentrated illustrates the tension. Commercial activity can expand at the same time that a small number of firms capture much of the revenue, capital, or infrastructure.

International comparisons require exchange-rate and purchasing-power care. Government budgets expressed in U.S. dollars can move because of currency changes. Labor and manufacturing costs differ by country. State-owned companies and public research institutions may perform work that appears as private activity elsewhere.

The United States should also measure dependence on foreign demand. Exports can strengthen scale, but exposure to one overseas customer or region can create vulnerability. Domestic government demand provides stability but may shape products around unique requirements that limit broader sales.

Competitiveness indicators need a time dimension. A country may hold a large present market share but invest less in future production. Another may report lower current revenue while expanding factories, training workers, and supporting new entrants.

The most informative assessment would combine current commercial performance with evidence of future capacity. Market share, exports, productivity, investment, innovation, workforce, supplier depth, and regulatory time should be viewed together.

Regional Governments Need Metrics They Can Apply

Governors and mayors increasingly treat space activity as an economic-development opportunity. They support spaceports, research parks, manufacturing facilities, workforce programs, university laboratories, and tax incentives. National statistics rarely provide enough detail to evaluate these projects.

Local officials need to distinguish direct space businesses from suppliers that could serve the sector. A machine shop may have aerospace certification without holding a space contract. A software company may serve satellite customers alongside health or financial clients. Both may represent growth potential, but they should not be counted the same way.

Company directories can help, provided they record operating status, locations, products, customers, employment, and evidence of space activity. Lists built from marketing claims can overstate regional depth. A registered business with a space-related name may have no employees or revenue.

Regional metrics could include establishments, employment, payroll, capital investment, contracts, exports, patents, research funding, graduates, supplier relationships, and occupied industrial space. Each measure answers a different development question.

Spaceports require their own framework. An operating site can support launch, reentry, testing, payload processing, training, tourism, research, and industrial development. License status alone does not measure activity. Launches, tenants, employment, private investment, infrastructure use, and public subsidy should be reported separately.

University activity also deserves careful classification. Research funding can support science and technology without creating a commercial company. Licensing, spinouts, industry partnerships, and graduate employment show how academic work connects with the market.

Regional comparisons should account for specialization. Florida’s launch activity cannot be compared directly with Colorado’s concentration in spacecraft and operations or California’s mix of manufacturing, launch, software, and investment. A region does not need every segment to possess economic strength.

Public incentives require outcome tracking. Announced investment and projected employment should remain separate from completed construction and filled jobs. Reporting should identify the period covered and whether figures describe direct, indirect, or induced activity.

A common federal framework could give states consistent definitions without suppressing local detail. Regional agencies could submit comparable information and receive national benchmarks. Federal analysts would gain a clearer map of industrial clusters, supplier gaps, and infrastructure needs.

Reliable regional evidence would also help companies. Manufacturers could identify supplier concentrations, workforce pools, test facilities, and potential customers. Investors could compare clusters through more than promotional material.

A Recurring Federal Framework Should Use a Layered Dashboard

The Office of Space Commerce has requested metrics for size, growth, health, competitiveness, resilience, and capacity. These concepts cannot be compressed into one number without losing meaning. A layered dashboard would preserve their differences.

Size can include gross domestic product, gross output, revenue, employment, compensation, and establishments. Growth can measure changes in those figures, adjusted for inflation where appropriate. Health can include profitability, business formation, survival, backlog, hiring, and access to capital.

Competitiveness can cover exports, market share, productivity, cost, delivery time, reliability, patents, and international customers. Resilience can measure supplier concentration, lead times, import dependence, substitution capacity, cybersecurity readiness, and financial exposure. Capacity can track factories, test facilities, launch sites, production rates, workforce availability, and utilization.

Each category should contain a small set of primary measures supported by diagnostic indicators. Too many metrics can make the dashboard difficult to interpret. Too few can hide the mechanisms driving change.

The framework should preserve a clear distinction between observed facts and forecasts. Revenue already recognized differs from projected market demand. A signed contract differs from a nonbinding announcement. A funded production line differs from a proposed facility.

Revision policies should be public. Economic data change as companies update filings, agencies improve estimates, or national accounts incorporate new source material. Users need to know whether historical figures have been revised and why.

Frequency should match the data. Gross domestic product and employment may be reported annually. Launch activity, investment, contracts, and company formation can be updated quarterly. Supply-chain surveys may require less frequent collection to reduce burden.

The framework should also provide confidence levels or quality indicators. Administrative tax data may offer stronger verification than voluntary estimates. Classified activity may require ranges. Emerging markets may have limited observations.

Government-verifiable does not mean that every input must originate inside government. Commercial databases, industry surveys, company filings, and academic research can contribute. Verification means the method, source, and calculation can be examined and repeated.

Public access would increase the framework’s value. Companies, researchers, state governments, and investors could use the same baseline, reducing reliance on incompatible headline figures. Sensitive industrial details could remain protected through aggregation.

A successful framework should allow users to move from the national total to the underlying structure. They should be able to see whether growth came from manufacturing, communications, launch, data services, government demand, exports, or capital investment.

Summary

The September 2026 Office of Space Commerce solicitation represents a move toward more systematic measurement of the U.S. commercial space sector. The government wants a documented and verifiable framework capable of supporting recurring reporting beginning in fiscal year 2027.

Existing statistics provide a substantial base. The Bureau of Economic Analysis measures value added, output, employment, and compensation through its Space Economy Satellite Account. Industry groups track revenue and operational activity. Private analysts monitor investment and market demand. Regional agencies count companies, jobs, and projects.

The figures produced by these sources differ because their definitions and purposes differ. A narrow measure captures direct production but can miss space-enabled value. A broad measure shows economic dependence but can attribute too much terrestrial activity to satellites and launch systems.

A layered approach offers a defensible solution. Direct space production should form the central account. Space-enabled industries should be assessed through dependency and productivity measures. Emerging markets should distinguish existing revenue from funded development, proposals, and forecasts.

Manufacturing requires attention because mixed-use plants and own-account production can hide substantial activity. Employment statistics need occupational and geographic detail. Supply-chain measures must expose concentration, lead times, import dependence, and substitution difficulty. Investment data should separate announced capital from closed transactions and productive results.

Competitiveness cannot be represented by launch counts or government budgets alone. Exports, market share, customer diversity, productivity, reliability, technical performance, regulatory time, and future capacity all contribute to commercial standing.

Regional governments need measures that distinguish operating businesses from unverified prospects and completed outcomes from projected benefits. Shared federal definitions could improve comparisons without treating every cluster as structurally identical.

The planned study will succeed if it produces more than a new market-size estimate. Policymakers need a system that explains where growth occurs, what supports it, and where the sector remains exposed. Companies need evidence about customers, workers, suppliers, capital, and infrastructure. Investors need figures that distinguish commercial performance from announcements.

Reliable measurement will not resolve every disagreement about what belongs inside the space economy. It can make those disagreements visible and prevent unlike numbers from being presented as direct equivalents.

The United States already possesses many of the required data sources. The task is to connect them through clear definitions, repeatable methods, transparent limitations, and reporting schedules suited to each metric. If the Office of Space Commerce establishes that foundation, fiscal year 2027 could mark the beginning of a more useful way to assess the economic system supporting American activity in space.