After the ISS: The new geography of low Earth orbit

The International Space Station is retiring, and what replaces it will not look like it. Instead of one unified, intergovernmental programme, the next era of low Earth orbit will be split across multiple commercial destinations, sovereign stations, and competing models of access, each shaped by a different mix of money, politics and regulation.

That changes the question governments and companies should be asking. It is no longer “who will build the next ISS?” It is who will control access to orbit, who will pay for the infrastructure behind it, and which countries get to help write the rules.

The space race continues

The United States is betting on competition, with four commercial concepts (Axiom, Starlab, Orbital Reef and Vast) each pursuing a different architecture. China is betting on continuity: Tiangong is already flying, already hosting international research, and already building the diplomatic relationships that come with having a working station while others are still finalising designs. Neither approach is obviously superior, but this report argues the real advantage will go to whoever turns capacity into a durable ecosystem, not whoever launches the most hardware first.

Underneath the architecture sits a harder question: who will actually pay to use these stations, how often, and for what? Government research and astronaut missions offer credible demand, but private markets like tourism and in-space manufacturing remain thin, and the market may not support several large, privately financed stations running in parallel. Meanwhile, for countries without the budget to own a station outright, access itself is becoming a form of geopolitical currency, and licensing, liability and export controls will shape who gets to compete at all.

The four futures

The report sketches four plausible futures for 2035, from a networked, interoperable system to one split into strategic blocs with little movement between them. The most likely outcome is a messy mixture of both, and the decisions being made now on procurement, access rights and regulation will determine which one we end up with.

Download the full report below.