## 4 Supply and Demand
### Aplications  
An alternative split-out of the space economy can be based on the main applications, such as telecommunications, navigation and precision timing, remote sensing/Earth Observation (EO), and others (scientific exploration, human space activities, etc.). Figure 4 depicts the structure of satellites across these applications. Let us take a closer look at the first three, which have the strongest commercial meaning. Telecommunication refers to the transmitting or exchanging of information through various means, including satellite communication. Satellite communication is generally used for the same applications as its terrestrial counterparts, mainly TV, radio, and the internet. The main advantage of satellite communication over them is that the \"signals can reach virtually any place on the Earth's surface. This is simply not always possible with alternative options such as radio towers and cables, or it may at least be economically unviable\" [55] (p. 92). It all began with the launch of SCORE in 1958, the first telecommunications satellite. In 1962, Telstar became the first commercial telecommunications satellite,  
Figure 4: Structure of active satellites by main applications in 2011 and 2023. Source: own based on [4] (p. 7) and [54] (p. 7). and in 1965, the first geostationary telecommunications satellite, Intelsat, was deployed. Historically, the development model focused on designing and deploying increasingly powerful satellites in GEO to maximize coverage. Over time, GEO satellites evolved in power, frequency use, and performance. These advancements made satellites exponentially more capable, supporting thousands of channels and complex data networks. However, these gains came at a high cost, including expensive Earth stations, large satellite masses, and high launch expenditures. The focus remained on GEO, which simplified ground operations by allowing fixed-position antennas [25; 56]. By the 1990s, the limitations of GEO systems--particularly latency and signal path loss due to distance--led to the development of the first LEO constellations, which offered drastically reduced latency and greater signal strength due to proximity to Earth. Early LEO pioneers included Iridium, Globalstar, Orbcomm, and ICO, offering mobile voice and data services. However, most faced bankruptcy due to the combination of high capital costs, expensive and bulky user terminals, and rapid advancements in terrestrial cellular networks that made satellite phones obsolete [25]. These failures raised skepticism about large-scale satellite constellations for years. However, at the end of the 2010s decade, the LEO mega-constellations (Starlink, OneWeb) started to emerge, using mass-produced small satellites, which could be launched in volume at lower costs (SpaceX cost-cutting in launching services), delivering internet and networking services with minimal latency. On the other hand, High Throughput Satellites (HTS), such as Viasat-1/2, Intelsat Epic, and Hughes Jupiter, dedicated to GEO, were developed recently.They feature throughput fifty times greater than earlier models, enabled by improved digital encoding and spectrum reuse. These HTS continued the traditional design trajectory but vastly increased performance and cost-efficiency. In the meantime, the emergence of MEO satellites aimed to balance the advantages of GEO and LEO satellites. Medium Earth Orbit satellites offer lower latency than GEO and broader coverage than LEO. For example, between 2013 and 2019, the SES O3b constellation was launched as part of this effort [25; 55; 56]. The development of the American GPS started in 1973 and resulted in the era of satellite navigation (GNSS). Russian GLONASS, Chinese BeiDou, and the European Galileo, like GPS, all operate at MEO. These networks rely on precise atomic clocks in satellites to broadcast timing signals, allowing receivers on the ground to calculate location with near-centimeter accuracy [25]. In the beginning, the satellite navigation system was developed for military purposes.