Abstract

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) –driven satellite constellations challenges conventional understandings of Information Systems (IS) governance. Traditionally conceived as a managerial function within bounded organizations, IS governance is here reframed as a polycentric arena where technical infrastructures, institutional authorities, and algorithmic agents converge. Drawing on an exploratory abductive design, combining interviews, observations, and a longitudinal corpus of over 200 docum ents (2019 –2025), this study investigates how constellations redistribute authority across informational, organizational, and normative domains. The findings identify dual forms of polycentrism: technical, stemming from heterogeneous AI -enabled infrastruct ures; and governance, dispersed across state, industrial, and supranational actors. To conceptualize this intersection, the paper introduces Skin Space Data (SSD) as an emergent heuristic construct framing constellations as a planetary informational layer. While preliminary, SSD offers analytical leverage to theorize how AI -driven infrastructures reconfigure IS governance and stimulate adaptive frameworks in security and defense contexts

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