In a few months it will be 60 years since the first landing on the moon. It was on 3 February 1966 that the Russian Luna 9 probe touched down on Earth's satellite. A short while later, it transmitted the first shots from the surface of the moon to the Earth. The then Soviet Union was unable to celebrate this triumph for long, however: just three years later, its traditional enemy achieved a manned landing, when US astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on 21 July 1969. When he uttered the words “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” he wrote himself into the history books. Six decades later, a new space race has begun. If president Donald Trump is to be believed, the USA is set to return to the moon before China reaches that goal, roughly 380,000 kilometres away.
How important this project is to the Republican was evident from a recent hearing in the Senate. The White House would like to appoint Jared Isaacman as head of the space agency, NASA. Against this backdrop, the billionaire and amateur astronaut faced questions from legislators. Were the USA to fall behind China in the race to the moon, he said, “the consequences could shift the balance of power here on Earth.” Should Isaacman be confirmed in the post of administrator, he is likely to quickly turn his focus to the Artemis programme. It is now three years since NASA took the first step towards the planned return to space. In November 2022, an unmanned spacecraft spent more than three weeks orbiting the moon. Artemis II is now in the starting blocks: a four-strong crew is set to begin the journey to the 4.5 billion-year-old satellite by no later than April 2026. For ten days they will put the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft through rigorous testing. If everything goes smoothly, it could be mid-2027 when people land on the moon again – the first time since the end of 1972.
In addition to NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and a large number of companies are also involved in the multi-billion-dollar Artemis programme. This exemplifies the enormous dynamism of the space economy. According to figures from the Space Foundation, it hit a record volume of USDbn 613 in 2024 – 7.8% up on the year before. “Space is not just a frontier for exploration; it is a cornerstone of our economy and security,” said Heather Pringle, CEO of the Space Foundation, commenting on the latest development. In fact, the space economy extends far beyond the government programmes, with the non-profit advocacy group revealing that commercial sectors account for more than three quarters of the market. They primarily deliver satellite systems for communication, broadband internet and observation of the Earth. On the government side, security and defence are key growth drivers alongside the major discovery missions. One example of this came at the start of July 2025, when Donald Trump released an initial USDbn 25 tranche of investment for planning the “Golden Dome” missile defence shield.
The urge to explore the vastness of the universe is also being reflected in the number of space flights. According to the Space Foundation, in the first half of 2025 a launch system took off every 28 hours. That represents a sixfold increase on the record for the previous year. SpaceX was responsible for 81 of the total 149 starts. With “Starship”, the reusable rocket system, the aerospace company owned by Tesla boss Elon Musk has made a decisive contribution towards slashing the costs for flights into space. Not least because of that, the outlook remains positive. The Space Foundation expects what it calls the space economy to break the sound barrier of USDtn 1 in 2032. That would mean it had expanded by almost two thirds within just eight years.
Source: Space Foundation, as at July 2025
2032: Forecast; source: Space Foundation, as at July 2025 Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.