Numerous issues on Earth can be resolved with the vast amount of information that satellites gather about our globe. For instance, satellite communication can help with remote services and natural disaster management, remote sensing technologies can be used to identify changes in the environment, and human spaceflight has improved our knowledge of medicine. 

Early 20th-century space visionaries saw that placing satellites in orbit may provide immediate and palpable advantages to people on Earth. For instance, in 1945, Arthur C. Clarke detailed a method for relaying communications throughout the world using three satellites in orbit roughly 35,800 km (22,250 miles) above the Equator. The satellites would seem to be motionless in the sky from the ground in this orbit, known as a geostationary orbit, because their orbital period would match Earth's rotating period. (See spaceflight: Earth orbit for further details on satellite orbits.) Project RAND, the forerunner of the RAND Corporation, highlighted the advantages of being able to view Earth from space in a 1946 report for the U.S. Army Air Forces included distinguishing the impact sites of bombs dropped by U.S. aircraft and improving weather forecasting.

IMPORTANCE OF SPACE TO EARTH
Predicting the occurrence of natural disasters

An average of 45,000 people worldwide lose their lives to natural disasters each year, according to Our World in Data. They cause billions of dollars in economic harm and have an influence on the lives of a great deal more people. And concerning, rising urbanization and an increase in extreme weather events could make the effects of disasters worse.

Early warning of impending natural disasters could save lives and lessen their negative effects on the economy. Such calamities have historically been hard to forecast, but satellites can now offer fresh data that greatly facilitates prompt and coordinated action. 

One of the initial studies was carried out under an international working group on disaster hotspots, which was established and had representatives of space agencies worldwide. This group's long-term goal is for space agencies to pool their resources in order to forecast all kinds of natural disasters using Earth observation data. Which space technologies ought to be developed in order to do this was examined in the study.

Subsequent to this inquiry, a subsequent study examined the potential for enhancing natural disaster forecasting by merging Earth observation data with computational technological innovations. The study's recommendations were centered on cloud-based infrastructure, namely on the processing of massive amounts of data in a semi-automated manner. 

More focused research examined the application of available satellite data to the analysis of drought in southern Africa and the investigation of Indonesian tectonic processes. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common in Indonesia. Natural disaster forecasting is essential because, in the case of Mount Marapi, a large-scale eruption that may endanger 1.1 million people is long overdue. Space technology can be used to monitor the ground by fusing global navigation systems with SAR interferometry, a radar-based approach movement over time.

Satellites can assist in disaster response in addition to catastrophe forecasting. In order to offer prompt, real-time assistance in the event of a disaster, a Discovery study suggested a constellation of satellites that combines satellite communications and Earth monitoring. Another gathered resources from the public and corporate sectors to decide on consensus-building techniques that would lessen ambiguity and increase confidence in crucial information used to make decisions on natural disasters.

Keeping an eye on marine litter

The annual amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean is about 13 million tones. A little of this floats on the surface, but the majority sinks to the ocean floor. From there, it may wash up on coasts, impacting not only the food chain and coastal communities but well as wildlife.

Since it is impossible to see a large portion of the surface at once from Earth's surface, monitoring this material can be quite challenging. However, satellite remote sensing in particular may alter our capacity to track plastic garbage, and Discovery & Preparation is funding research to find the most effective methods for doing so.

In order to approximate large-scale plastic concentrations around the world, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, maps of ocean currents can tell us where plastic is likely to move. This is just one example of how measurements from space are already being used indirectly to address the issue of marine litter. However, there is still a lot more to be done. A call for proposals via the Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP), and several creative suggestions for using remote sensing to identify and track marine trash pollution were received. 

The funded projects that sprang from this call for ideas investigated the ways in which remote sensing—especially satellite remote sensing—could assist in the identification and tracking of marine plastic. The entire list can be found here. All elements that feed into this complex problem were analyzed, ranging from monitoring platforms (aircraft, drones, satellites) to specific sensors, through simulations to forecast the movement of litter through the ocean.

The activities demonstrated what can be achieved with present technology in various observational circumstances and what has to be done to go even further, laying the foundation for a healthy community that develops European capabilities in this unique field of study.

Enabling autonomous shipping

Just as driverless cars may be the future of the automotive industry, captain-less ships may be the future of the shipping industry. However, autonomous shipping depends on an accurate and continuously available navigation system; studies into ways to improve current satellite navigation systems to enable autonomous shipping have been supported by Discovery, for example by combining them with land-based systems to improve positioning accuracy. One of the most challenging times for a ship's captain is entering or exiting a harbor. A similar study focused on the development of a Maritime Adaptive GNSS Safety Concept to support mariners, especially within the vicinity of ports. Ships worldwide use satellites to navigate; one discovery study explored the impact of space weather on navigation in the Arctic.

In 2019, an OSIP request for ideas was initiated to find ways to facilitate autonomous shipping from harbor to harbor. Five projects were chosen for additional study: one that would examine autonomous shipping in sea ice conditions; another that would improve a vessel's awareness of its surroundings; a fifth that would combine navigational data with Earth observation to enhance navigation safety assessment; and a sixth that would create a secure communication channel between an autonomous ship and a space navigation system.

Military and National security

Space-based systems have proven to be extremely valuable for military and national security purposes. Countries and organizations that have sent soldiers to fight overseas have been quick to realize this. The United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and, to a lesser extent, other European countries have deployed increasingly sophisticated space systems, such as communications, meteorology, and positioning and navigation satellites, that are dedicated to military purposes. Additionally, the United States and Russia have developed satellites that can provide early warning of hostile missile launches. Many of these satellites have been developed to meet unique military requirements, like the capacity to operate in a warzone.

Up until now, the main purpose of military space systems has been to increase the efficiency of military troops stationed on land, in the air, and at sea. In dire situations, national authorities might employ satellites to send orders to launch nuclear weapons. Commanders use them to communicate with soldiers fighting on the front lines. Meteorological satellites aid in the planning of airstrikes, while positioning satellites are employed to precisely guide munitions to their targets. 

Although space is used extensively for military purposes, no nation has established a space system that can strike a satellite in orbit or deliver a missile to a target on Earth. However, with the increasing number of nations obtaining military space capabilities and the continued occurrence of regional and small wars worldwide, it remains uncertain if space will continue to be treated as a weapons-free sanctuary.

Telecommunication 

The majority of work in the late 1950s and early 1960s concentrated on the technology by which a signal sent from the ground would be received by satellite, electronically processed, and relayed to another ground station. While some early space experiments investigated the use of large orbiting satellites as passive reflectors of signals from point to point on Earth, this was not the main focus of the work. Recognizing the business potential of satellite communications, American Telephone and Telegraph funded NASA's first Telstar satellite launch in 1962. A massive network of such satellites would have been required for a functioning system, since that satellite, operating in a rather low orbit, was within a few minutes' reach of any one receiving antenna. American Hughes Aircraft engineers, under the direction of Harold Rosen, developed a design for a satellite that would operate in geostationary orbit. Aided by research support from NASA, the first successful geostationary satellite, Syncom 2, was launched in 1963; it demonstrated the feasibility of the Hughes concept prior to commercial use.

Initially, communications satellites were used to transmit data, voice, and video from a single, sizable antenna to a second, farther one. From there, the communication was dispersed via terrestrial networks. In addition to being used domestically in some nations, most notably the United States, in the 1970s, this point-to-point application brought international communications to a great deal of previously untapped territory. Undersea fiber-optic cables began to compete with communications satellites on both an economic and technological level as their carrying capacity and signal quality increased. In response, communications satellites made similar technological advancements, which made these space-based systems capable of meeting the challenge. Numerous American and European businesses compete worldwide for clients by producing communications satellites. Other businesses operate these satellites, often producing significant profits.

Novel commercial uses 

Advocates for space travel have noted several potential avenues for commercial space travel in the future. Many are dependent on reducing the cost of space transportation for their economic viability, a goal that neither the government nor private industry have been able to accomplish to date. Tens of thousands of dollars have historically been required for each kilogram of cargo to reach low Earth orbit, which has been a major obstacle to future space research. But one firm, SpaceX, reduced this cost with its Falcon 9 rocket by a factor of ten, and with its next Falcon Heavy, it promises to cut it much more.

When the ISS's laboratories started to function, it was initially anticipated that the space would host a sizable amount of research that was supported by private industry. It was anticipated that this would comprise industry-funded microgravity research in ISS labs as well as unconventional activities including charging for travelers' stays, using the station for movie production, and permitting commercial endorsements of products used on board. It was anticipated that if the ISS was commercially successful, further privately funded facilities would be developed in low Earth orbit, including as manufacturing, research, and residential outposts. There might also be privately funded transportation systems built to provide access to these facilities. Such commercial demand for access to the station did not materialize due to delays in building the station, especially after the shuttle fleet was grounded following the 2003 Columbia disaster. Though the ISS is expected to be operational until at least 2024, it's feasible that further private sector utilization of the station will occur if preliminary studies results demonstrate the facility’s benefits.

The resources found on the Moon and other solar system worlds, especially asteroids, offer more prospective goals for business development. For instance, the soil of the moon includes significant levels of the isotope helium-3 deposited there by the solar wind over billions of years. For usage in nuclear fusion reactors, scientists and engineers have proposed that helium-3, which is uncommon on Earth, may be collected and brought there. Furthermore, there is evidence that the polar areas of the Moon may contain ice, which may provide oxygen for breathing, drinking water, and hydrogen for spacecraft fuel to a crewed lunar colony. Certain asteroids may also contain significant amounts of potentially valuable resources including water, carbon, nitrogen, and rare metals, and space mining of resources has been proposed.