What are the mechanisms to close gaps in capacity-building within emerging spacefaring ecosystems, and how do commercially led partnerships help advance this goal?

This thesis examines the gaps in capacity building partnerships with emerging spacefaring ecosystems and how commercially led partnerships can help advance this goal while aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #17: Partnerships for the Goals. Through collaboration with the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), The Space Foundation, and industry experts at Arizona State University, this project seeks to understand the dynamics, benefits, and challenges of partnerships between commercial space companies, academia, and emerging spacefaring nations. The research aims to identify drivers, economic impacts, and obstacles to those partnerships, providing mechanisms to facilitate and scale matchmaking between space commercial entities (SCEs) and emerging spacefaring nations (ESFEs). The study involves engagement with stakeholders and the discovery of a lack of essential data which resulted in the development of the Partnership Motivation Index (PMI), a framework to assess and rank the ability of ecosystems and entities to form capacity-building partnerships, and traditional data research to identify key independent variables. By examining both the needs and offerings of emerging spacefaring ecosystems and entities, this research develops a robust framework to foster impactful partnerships, enabling these nations to become active participants in the global space economy and contribute to the achievement of their Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.