The paper outlines an approach for strategizing, planning, and implementing collaborative arrangements for space services and how to optimize the best outcomes.

“Governments seeking to provide satellite communications, navigation, Earth monitoring, space exploration, and other space applications recognize the significant role that the private sector can play in delivering these capabilities at reduced cost and risk,” said author Karen Jones, senior project leader with CSPS. “By leveraging commercial efficiencies and innovation these public-private partnerships can provide significant advantages to government agencies, while sharing risk in exchange for profits linked to performance.”

The paper provides numerous case studies and delineates lessons learned from different public-private partnerships in the U.S. and abroad —some successful, and others less so. These lessons include reviewing the business model, creating a shared vision, dealing with changing needs, fostering competition, motivating profit-based organizations, building long-term alliances, establishing payment schedules, and sharing data.

Dr. Jamie Morin, executive director for CSPS, said, “There is no single recipe for success, and these partnerships are not appropriate for all programs and objectives in the space domain. Still, for those projects that can apply them, public-private partnerships offer potential advantages in terms of delivery schedules, quality of service, and innovation.”

Jones suggests that an ideal partnership involves a delicate balance, where the government does not give up too much control and the private sector does not assume too much risk. Moreover, any such arrangement must abide by the guiding principles of neutrality, transparency, accountability, and governance.