Before the end of the 20th century, space programs were mainly in the domain of industrialized nations, primarily the United States and the Soviet Union, who used the space program as a contest of national superiority during the Cold War. As the 20th century drew to a close and with the fall of the Soviet Union, it became less of a contest and more of a program of cooperation as the industrialized nations of the world joined together to create the Internation Space Station Unity/Zarya.
However, the International Space Station ended in failure after only a year in operation. Russia sold their space station Mir to Harris-3M, the first time a corporation owned and manned a space station in orbit. Mir continued operation until 2008, when a meteoroid impacted it and forced the corporation to scuttle it. Later, the US sold NASA and its space station Freedom to a then budding industrial conglomerate known as Ares Macrotechnology in 2016. The corporate acquisition of Mir and NASA proved to be the beginnings of a corporate space race which continues to the present day, as various corporations try to outdo each others' exploits.
The first major leaps into space were made by Ares and Harris-3M. In 2017, the Halo, a geonsynchronous station, was built by Harris-3M. In 2019, Ares unveiled its own space station, Apollo, which became fully operational in 2020. The Space Station Freedom was sold to the Inter-Corporate Council and became the renamed Zurich-Orbital. In 2027, Ares began construction of the Daedalus. By that time, Harris-3M had built Angel Station and Nerva.
In Europe, the European Space Agency was beginning to have the same financial problems as NASA, and they sold their assets to Saeder-Krupp in 2025. In Japan, Mitsuhama started a space-faring subsidiary called Shibata, and began launching satellites from Kagoshima in 2023. A dozen other companies followed, privatizing much of the space around low earth and geosynchronous orbit.
The Crash Virus of 2029 changed all that, causing many space stations and satellites to fail. Less than half of the manned space stations survived. Only the megacorporations with diversified interests - Ares, Mitsuhama, and S-K - survived the ensuing financial fallout, and all of them were forced to scale back their space operations. Harris-3M fragmented and dissolved, and was bought out by Fuchi in 2038. Ares managed to maintain their space stations, and Daedalus was spared the brunt of the Crash Virus due to being under construction at the time.
Saeder-Krupp remained ahead in the space race, while Ares maintained the most off-world research stations. In 2060, Yamatetsu moved to Russia, and was granted access to the Svobodnly Cosmodrome, making them a new player in the space race. They would eventually land a manned mission on Mars in 2064. The dissolution of Fuchi in 2059 gave Renraku many key space assets, which were bought out by Mitsuhama's Shibata, making MCT a major player once again.
The passing of Halley's Comet proved to be a revitalizing factor after the post-Crash troubles and corporate war of 2059, as every major megacorporation and several minor ones engaged in a contest to try to be the first to land a probe on the comet. None of the probes on the first pass were able to make it to the comet intact, although Yamatetsu was able to land a probe, being the first corporation to do so. Ares eventually claimed the honors of landing a successful probe and sending telemetry back to Earth.