Business Model Innovation in the Space Industry

The Copernicus Programme leaded by ESA (European Space Agency) has/is released/ing a huge amount of Earth Observation data and therefore firms operating in the Space Industry aim at getting most out of them. However, this is not straightforward in that, to be exploited, data need to be processed and interpreted and this, on its turn, requires to build on new digital technologies, and particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this perspective, AI, while allowing data processing, can change the way firms create, deliver and capture value, and hence can be interpreted as a trigger igniting Business Model Innovation (BMI). While understanding BM as a set of different components, our objective is investigating i) whether AI initially modifies a specific component of the BM, to be considered as epicentre of BMI, or if any of the BM components can be the epicentre of innovation, and ii) whether the innovation process spreads from the epicentre to other BM components and if this happens according to a common path.