How the Bottlenecks Formed: a Timeline, 2018–2026
How did the space supply chain move from craft production to bottlenecks in eight years?
Chapter summary
in three phases.
Key takeaways
- 1
From 2018 to 2021, constellations turned satellites into a volume product and the largest builders brought parts in-house.
- 2
From 2022 to 2024, war in Ukraine, the post-pandemic electronics shortage and the start of proliferated defence architectures created the first visible shortages, of xenon, chips, solid motors and optical terminals, while China began licensing gallium and germanium exports.
- 3
From 2025 to 2026, defence demand surged with Golden Dome, mineral controls turned into a ban and a suspension, grid and data-centre construction absorbed shared electrical capacity, and consolidation accelerated.
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- Global Market Analysis: Deep Space Economy
- Space-Based Datacenters: Feasibility Study
- Commercial Space Stations: Feasibility Study
- Defence Space and Missile Defence: Golden Dome and the SDA Architecture
- Launch After Starship: Prices, Capacity and European Sovereign Launch, 2026–2035
- Satellites to Phones: Direct-to-Device Connectivity, Spectrum and Economics, 2026–2035
- Space Supply Chain Bottlenecks: Components, Minerals and Capacity, 2026–2030
- Lunar, Cislunar and Settlement Economics: What the Moon Costs and Who Pays, 2026–2060
- Earth Observation and AI Analytics: What a Square Kilometre Is Worth and Who Captures It, 2026–2035
- In-Space Manufacturing and Microgravity Biotech: Products, Platforms and Economics, 2026–2035
- Space-Based Solar Power: Physics, Costs and the Path to Firm Power from Orbit, 2026–2050
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The Supply Chain in Tiers: Primes, Subsystems, Parts and Materials
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