OP
Orbital ProgressMARKET FORMATION // SPACE ECONOMY
ORBITAL PROGRESSFounded 2026  //  Fiscally sponsored, pre-501(c)(3)
The world is in a new space race.

Markets, not mission-locked capability.

Sovereign capital is reshaping space on a scale the world has never seen. The institute builds the analytic discipline to distinguish investment that compounds from investment that strands — and works directly with the people whose decisions determine which it becomes.

The institute, in three numbers

The decade the institute was built to read.

Each figure is a finding the institute publishes. Each finding is load-bearing on a number, and each number has a source.

Net commercial growth · 2015–2025
+$6B
cumulative · global · ten years
The entire genuine commercial space economy added six billion dollars net over the decade.
Government share of net growth
90%
$64B of $70B added · 2015–2025
Traditional mission spending and commercially-procured government services accounted for nine of every ten dollars of growth.
Years of commercial decline
7
consecutive · 2016–2022 · global
Genuine commercial revenue contracted year-on-year for seven straight years before inflecting in 2023.
§01.1 · Open in the library

Recent publications.

F · 01FRAMEWORK
Framework · v1.0 · April 2026 · 26 pp

Sizing the Space-Sustaining Economy

A structural decomposition of a $203 billion economy. Three categories — traditional mission, commercially-procured government, genuine commercial — applied to the global space-sustaining economy 2015–2025.

Open reportW. D. Garretson, Ph.D.
READING TIME 14 MIN
MS · 01MARKET SIGNAL
Market Signal · v1.0 · March 2026 · 12 pp

What launch tells you about every other space market.

The first application of the Market Maturity Index. Launch is the most visible missions-to-market transition in the space economy — and one of the only ones that has fully cleared the threshold.

Open reportW. D. Garretson, Ph.D.
READING TIME 11 MIN
C · 01FORTHCOMING
Case · Published · Q3 2026

Axiom Space and the platform-substrate strategy.

The most deliberate example of the waystation strategy in the field: standardizing the platform substrate while leaving delivery flexible enough for sovereign missions to be purchased as products.

In analysisW. D. Garretson, Ph.D.
F · 02Framework
Nov 2025

Missions vs. Markets: The Space Economy Needs a Better Map

A demand-first framework for understanding where value is actually created — and why the current definitions fall short.

W. D. Garretson
READING TIME 12 MIN
MS · 02Market Signal
March 2026

Ignition: How Space Commerce Actually Starts

The first commercial space markets did not emerge from demand — they emerged from a narrow set of conditions that happen to look like demand in retrospect.

W. D. Garretson
READING TIME 7 MIN
B · 01Brief
December 2025

When Mission Logic Broke: Lessons from the SpaceX Inflection Point

Why one company crossed the boundary between missions and markets — and why most others, then and now, structurally could not.

W. D. Garretson
READING TIME 9 MIN
§02 · The institute

Where missions become markets.

The institute publishes frameworks, market signals, segment diagnostics, and cases — analytic infrastructure for understanding where space markets are actually forming and what it takes to cross the threshold. It also works directly with founders and procurement leaders to build toward genuine commercial discipline and programs that create markets rather than capability silos.

§02 · Frameworks

The institute's analytic infrastructure.

FW · 01 · LIVE

Market Signal Sizing

The three-way decomposition of the space-sustaining economy: traditional mission spending, commercially-procured government services, genuine commercial revenue.

→ Framework F-01 · published
FW · 02 · LIVE

Market Maturity Index

The diagnostic for whether a segment is forming a market or remains stuck in mission procurement. Two observable axes — supplier productization, buyer commerciality — produce four quadrants.

→ Framework F-02 · in MS-01 application
FW · 03 · DRAFTING

The Three Migration Paths

How a segment crosses from mission to market: the natural waystation through productized/mission, the commercial-pull path that bypasses mission-buyer discipline, and the dead-end where free government provision caps the commercial ceiling.

→ Framework F-03 · publish Q3 2026
FW · 04 · COMMITTED

“Is this actually a market?”

The pocket diagnostic. Six observable questions that distinguish commercial behavior from a commercial label. Designed to fit on a single page so a procurement officer or investor can apply it from a deal memo.

→ Framework F-04 · publish 2026
§04 · Patron circle

The instrument that turns a research program into a named institution.

The founding patron circle is being constituted in 2026. Patrons provide the sustaining support that keeps the institute’s findings free from commercial capture — three years of operating independence. In return: pre-publication briefings, the quarterly patron letter, and direct founder access during the founding period.

LABEL · EDIT ME
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