Applications




Current and proposed applications for spaceflight include:

  • Earth observation satellites such as spy satellites, weather satellites
  • Space exploration
  • Communication satellites
  • Satellite television
  • Satellite navigation
  • Space tourism
  • Protecting Earth from potentially hazardous objects
  • Space colonization

Most early spaceflight development was paid for by governments. However, today major launch markets such as communication satellites and satellite television are purely commercial, though many of the launchers were originally funded by governments.

Private spaceflight is a rapidly developing area: space flight that is not only paid for by corporations or even private individuals, but often provided by private spaceflight companies. These companies often assert that much of the previous high cost of access to space was caused by governmental inefficiencies they can avoid. This assertion can be supported by much lower published launch costs for private space launch vehicles such as Falcon 9 developed with private financing. Lower launch costs and excellent safety will be required for the applications such as space tourism and especially space colonization to become feasible for expansion.

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