During my final semester, I participated in the Interplanetary Initiative. This ASU-led program focuses on advancing space activities that produce long-term value for humanity, ranging from incentivizing space collaboration, to exploring the colonization of another planet. The project I was involved in under the initiative is the Partnership Motivation Index, a project focused on identifying the feasibility of capacity-building through commercially-led space collaboration. Specifically, it seeks to analyze the logistics of bolstering the capabilities of emerging spacefaring nations through support, and identifying the drivers and motivations behind space collaboration. This project is being conducted over numerous semesters, and I was involved in the Spring 2025 term of the project.
For this semester, our group followed an incremental approach to truly establish and define the levels of collaboration, and their respective motivations, based on empirical examples. These levels of collaboration stem from compliance requirements to short/long term goals for their respective organizations. Working with another student in the project, we identified real world examples of space collaboration between space commerical entities and emerging spacefaring nations, and began categorizing them into general themes. For example, we identified an example with SpaceX and the Argentinian space agency where the firm used their FalconX rocket in order to launch Argentina's SAOCOM satellite into space; we determined that this was a more short term form of collaboration and was categorized as such. After looking at dozens of real world examples, we used the information and general themes to identify specific rubrics to define each level as a unique tier, where each entity could be identified within one of four groups to determine their motivations and interests for partnership. We identified that emerging nations have different priorities than more established nations, as their goals are largely centered around creating an initial space framework, while the latter is focused on creating sustainable competitiveness in space. Afterwards, we then focused on creating the algorithm based on a set of parameters, in order to dynamically estimate levels of collaboration. This process also involved interviewing executives from international space organizations and analyzing global examples of collaboration. This allowed me to develop a unique understanding of each nation's unique goals for their space program, dependent on the country's need. For example, certain emerging nations desired access to space for the sake of environmental monitoring, due to their history of natural disasters. This project was presented at the IAC conference in Milan during the Fall 2024 semester, and has plans to be involved in future international space conferences.
This experience directly aligns with the theme of Security, as it directly deals with the international realm of space, incentivizing collaboration in order to prevent conflict. Historically, the realm of space has been a point of tension for several nations, most notably Russia and the US during the Space Race. Even further, in the modern world space is largely dominated by these large first-world countries, with limited involvement from emerging nations. This project seeks to enable and incentivize collaboration, in order to democratize the benefits that space has to offer, enabling mutual benefits for all parties involved.
This experience directly aids in my career aspects, as working at a commercial space corporation is a long-term goal of mine. Ranging from companies like Blue Origin to NASA, space research and analysis is the realm of study I want to retire my Computer Science background in, and this project provided insights into how collaboration in the unique space industry operates. I was also able to interview international space executives, understanding how they independently run and develop space programs, offering numerous perspectives in the field. It also provided me the professional social skills required to interact with high-level executives, a skill that will always assist me when working with supervisors or other higher-up employees in the corporate world.