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This paper contributes to an understanding of the evolution of the space industry and the role innovation policy and industrial change have played in that process. It looks at the impact of business-government interactions on the emerging space industry and how it evolved from the consolidation of aerospace businesses to the government creating national agencies to support the industry (through the use of innovation policy instruments) at the same time that privatization of the aerospace businesses occurred.

We conducted a comparative case study of the aerospace industry in three European countries—France, Italy, and the United Kingdom (the U.K.)—that explores the governments' strategies to develop the emerging space industry. These strategies comprise a mix of innovation instruments, including the establishment of government agencies with the mission of supporting the space industry. The space …