The 29th edition of the annual facts & figures report is out

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Eurospace announces the release of the 29th edition of the annual facts & figures report

f&f 2025 cover

f&f 2025 Cover

About the survey

Every year, Eurospace, the association of the European space manufacturing industry, issues the annual update of its facts & figures statistical series.

Since its inception, the statistical collection aims at measuring the value of the market for space systems design, development and production in Europe (i.e. the space industry manufacturing activity). Space systems are defined in detail (see “products definitions”) in order to ensure an appropriate data collection and to avoid misinterpretation of the data sets.

This statistical effort is supported by two main driving principles:

  • The focus on manufacturing activities (with the exclusion of all services related to the exploitation of space systems: launch services and satellite operations). Service activities associated to the manufacturing process of space systems (such as engineering and test services, consultancies etc.) are included in the perimeter of the survey. A share of ground systems operations is also included, when they are performed for Space agencies in Europe.
  • The effort to measure the value of the end-market, with the elimination of all inter-sectoral business that could be counted twice or more.

Perimeter of the survey

The Eurospace facts & figures survey focuses on measuring the economic value of industrial activities associated to the design, development and manufacturing of space systems (also called the upstream sector) in Europe.

It does not consider non-space products (such as missiles or consumer-end terminals such as GPS receivers, Satellite TV receivers and dishes, etc.) nor the provision of services based on the exploitation of space assets. This means that the revenues and employment of such companies as Eutelsat, Paradigm, Inmarsat, Arianespace, SES Global, and other operators are not included in the perimeter of the survey.

Data Collection

The data collection is supported by companies with space activities operating in Europe (not limited to Eurospace membership). Companies answer a questionnaire providing detailed information on their sales and employment relevant to space systems design, development and manufacturing. All information released to Eurospace is protected by a confidentiality agreement. The quality of the survey is only as good as the data provided by participating companies.

Most companies in the space manufacturing sector have participated at least once to the Eurospace survey in the past. The main players (companies with more than 100 space employees) usually support the survey on a very regular basis, while smaller players may only sporadically support the survey . When a reply is missing from a company, it is supplemented by an estimate based on a previous reply received from that company, and/or publicly available information on the company.

The space manufacturing sector in Europe is at the same time very fragmented and very concentrated. The 30 largest space units in Europe make for almost 70% of total employment of the sector. The remaining smaller players representing barely 30% of employment. It is also interesting to note that most smaller players work almost exclusively as subcontractors to the largest players. A new breed of companies has entered the sector in the past few years, supported by a large wave of company creation funded by private equity and venture capital. These new space start-ups now provide a sizeable share of employment in the sector, but are often in pore-revenue stage, and do not contribute large volumes of measurable business in the survey. Only a small fraction of them participates in the survey and for the most of them the relevant data points must be gathered from open source information.

From a statistical point of view, this means that an efficient data collection shall focus on collecting at least the main replies (the large players, and particularly the prime contractors) that will provide a good assessment of the final sales. Collecting additional replies from increasingly smaller players, adds a layer of detail to the survey and improve, sometimes very significantly, the measurement of employment; but it  does not affect as much the overall value of final sales and has a limited impact on the market data.

Survey representativeness

The Eurospace facts & figures economic model counts a total of 509 individual entries in 2025, representing a total of 742 companies/entities. During the 2025 survey we updated 387 entities, representing 89% of final sales and 79% of space employment. We believe that our survey is the most accurate in the European space sector both from the methodological and from the data collection points of view.

Survey 2025 – main results and key trends

The latest f&f report is only available to companies having supported the survey and to European institutions. Contact pierre.lionnet(@)eurospace.org to check whether you are eligible for a free PDF copy.

All others can download:

Note that all elements of the Eurospace Facts and Figures publication, including, data, charts and reports are provided for information purposes to the general public via .www.eurospace.org. All rights to use, repost or reproduce any excerpt of text, tables and charts are reserved by Eurospace. View our copyright policy here.