Space Activity Heat Map

Global Heat Map

What is the state of “space activities” globally, across countries, agencies, and projects?


A global perspective of space activity is currently not available. This project seeks to create a viewer of space activities through the lens of their key benefits, drivers, and end goals, tracked at the project level over time, investment level, and geographic location. By visualizing space activities and how they are globally spread across our planet, the heat map will provide a rich perspective about the diversity of space activities globally, and allow stakeholders to engage with such information to help understand and drive future space-related activities. A visual, dynamic, and interactive framing of the benefits of space that will allow a broader set of stakeholders to engage with the information and take part in shaping future projects.

Key Accomplishments

2022-2023

  • Developed a prototype for the Global Heat Map of Space visualization tool.

2023-2024

  • Added 20,000+ article dataset into the website tool.
  • Tackled critical website stability by fixing a data overload crash and mobile bugs, while simultaneously boosting performance with an API in development.
  • Adapted the website for mobile-friendly styling and implemented a faster article-loading system. 
  • Added 10,000 new articles to the website tool in the last quarter of 2023.
  • Submitted a proposal for the NSF AISL grant.

Project contact: 

Chris Bryan

Funding years:

2023-2024

2022-2023

Team members

Chris Bryan

Asst Professor – ASU School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence

Anousheh Ansari

XPRIZE

External Co-Lead

Chris Lewicki

The Planetary Society

Teri Knoll Binaei

Art+Production

Ellen Stofan

Smithsonian Institution

Mohamad Chehab

Student, ASU

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