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The US Commerce Department\\u2019s Bureau of Economic Analysis recently released its revised US Space Economy Statistics for 2012\\u20132021. The new data builds on previous estimates that were released in January 2022 by incorporating new source data and improved methods.

On this edition of The Ex Terra Podcast, Tom Patton talks with Dr. Tina Highfill, an award-winning research economist with the US Commerce Department\\u2019s Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The U.S. space economy statistics are built using BEA\\u2019s comprehensive supply and use tables (SUTs) and National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs), which provide insight into the internal workings of the U.S. economy and detail the contribution of specific industries and products to GDP. The SUTs measure the flows of goods and services purchased by each industry, the incomes earned from production in each industry, and the distribution of sales for each product. The NIPA data present the value and composition of U.S. GDP, the types of incomes generated in its production, and its associated employment. The goal of the space economy statistics is to highlight the space-related production and spending that are already present in the SUTs and NIPAs. In practice, these statistics represent a rearrangement of existing data to isolate spending and production for the space economy.

COVID had Less of an Impact on the US Space Economy than Other Sectors

"Generally speaking, what we found is that the COVID pandemic didn\'t impact the space economy as much as the overall US economy, but it also didn\'t see the same rebound," Highfill said.

BEA continues to expand and improve upon the space economy estimates with the intention of developing a time series of estimates with full industry detail aligning with BEA\\u2019s other statistical releases. Additionally, research is underway to estimate space economic activity by categories that are more salient to space community users, such as launch and R&D, to provide an additional layer of understanding about the U.S. space economy.