The 21st century has had a remarkable development in technologies, which has highly impacted the political and social structure of the world. Space exploration and space technologies are key areas of advancement: the so-called “new space age” is critical in defining the resurgence of interest in strategic space advancements. In fact, in the new space age, exploration and research, rather than being driven by only states, have been taken over by private companies, with their commercialisation and elevated entrepreneurial activity. Still, states are not exempted by space exploration; however, their importance and relevance have shifted from the space domination of the Cold War, which was mainly defined by USSR and US confrontation. Previously, it was a matter of recognition; now it is more motivated by economic opportunities and defence concerns.

The Gulf Cooperation Council countries are actively seeking a leading position in the space domain. Although all of the council’s members have established national space agencies, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia stand out as the most prolific and active.

The UAE is currently developing a series of missions to make the Emirates the leading Arab country in space. The UAE Space Agency, established in 2014, in 2014, is an independent federal public entity with financial and administrative autonomy, which reports to the Council of Ministers. The missions that the Agency is funding and leading are several, but some of them are worth mentioning: the first mission is the “Lunar Gateway Station”, to which the UAE will collaborate alongside the United States, Japan, Canada and the European Union to develop a module on NASA’s Lunar Gateway Station in addition to sending the first Emirati astronaut into lunar orbit as part of the project.[1] Another notable mission undertaken by the UAE in collaboration with the University of Colorado and with the participation of a significant number of Emirati private sector companies, is the “Emirati Interplanetary Mission 2028”. This mission involves an expedition to the orbit of Venus, followed by an exploration of the asteroid belt beyond Mars. The majority of meteorites that strike Earth originate from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which the mission seeks to investigate.[2] . Along with scientific research and exploration capabilities, it also aims to accelerate the country’s engineering capabilities. Finally, the Emirates’ long-awaited project, the MBZ – SAT, the region’s most advanced Earth observation satellite, was successfully launched on January 14, 2025. It has been in development by Emirati engineers at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre since 2020, with the majority of the satellite parts manufactured by private companies. Particularly, the satellite will provide the highest resolution imagery in the region.[3] Aside from missions, the UAE is committed to two different projects that underscore the interest of the Emirates in investing in the future of the “new space”: the first project is the “Space Economic Zones Programme”, an integrated programme developed by the UAE Space Agency to support space startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) so that they can contribute to the national space economy through partnerships with various stakeholders in the UAE.[4] It is a project functional to contribute to the new space economy with the implementation of the private sector operating in space. Another functional project is the “Arab Space Pioneers Programme”, which aims to provide young talent in space studies to implement knowledge and career prospects with a three-year intensive training programme. The programme aims to invest in Arab capacities who, in turn, can actively contribute to the global science community and drive scientific, economic and social development in their societies.[5] This project demonstrates the UAE’s commitment to training a new generation of capable space leaders.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, established the Saudi Space Agency (SSA) — previously known as the Saudi Space Commission (SSC) — in 2018, with the Agency operating under the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. Unlike the UAE, Saudi Arabia is highly concerned with the Iranian space programme, both for strategic and defensive reasons, and is currently seeking to match Teheran’s capabilities. Nonetheless, with the implementation of the Saudi Vision 2030, space became an increasingly relevant sector even in Saudi’s economy, due to the aim of diversifying the economy and relying less on oil revenues given their volatility. Saudi Arabia continues to invest in satellite manufacture and operation with the aim of strengthening the state’s comprehensive competence. The majority of the country’s space budget is still set aside for satellite-related operations, which are in high demand.[6] One of Riyadh’s interests is to build an internal space economy, but a relevant portion of economic resources is mainly devoted to outsourced projects that prevent the internal private sector and domestic industrial system from developing and intervening in the sector.

Space exploration has highly resurged in the last decade, but which are the possible future developments ahead of us?

Two main trajectories can be defined: firstly space commercialisation will become increasingly important, meaning an increasingly amount of private actors will operate in space in areas spanning from providing satellite services, space tourism with private companies offering spaceflights to civilians, space launch services that provide commercial launch capabilities. Secondly, more security issues will be posed in space, pushing the governments to seek for more scientific research in space, not more towards scientific advancements but towards military progress. These two elements will underscore much more presence of actors in orbit, that consequently will create much more debris in space, polluting the environment and heightening the risk of collision with the space debris, putting at risk the government and private operations in space. Nevertheless, space exploration both public and private should be continuously incentivised in the future, and the GCC countries can be pioneers in this area. Although the Gulf space exploration project is already off to a strong start, it has the potential to be even more successful in the future with sustained effort and funding, including protecting the space environment.