You are now reading yet another highly informative issue of SatMagazine — we thank you for taking your valuable time to read our offering. This issue’s content ranges from interesting Executive Spotlights to Case Studies of products that are truly of assistance for our industry, insightful analysis by subject-matter experts, and a number of features to help drive your success.
We work in an amazing industry, yet there are days when the mechanics of our duties edge on the mundane, when repetitiveness can be a challenge to the thought processes. This occurs to all of us, no matter our position in our organizations. Fortunately, and this is proven by our industry’s continued success and growth, the technologies and the spirit with which new opportunities are faced drive our enjoyment factor at “what we do” to new heights of personal and business enrichment.
I was reminded of how fortunate we are to work in this sector of the world’s business. A new neighbor named Brian moved in down the street from us a couple of months ago. He is an editor and writer within the world of high tech — for the publication EDN, as a matter of fact, whose tagline is “Electronics Design, Strategy, News …a comprehensive information source for providing in-depth technical information for electronics design engineers and news and business strategy insight for executives.” I would have to heartily agree and I now find myself reading the publication at least 2x weekly. EDN’s Senior Technical Editor, Brian Dipert, writes a blog entitled “Brian’s Brain” on the EDN site. And this is a tale of one particular pre-sunrise event...
My wife and I thoroughly enjoy viewing the International Space Station (ISS) on crisp, early mornings when such sightings are made possible due to its orbit and the conditions of the morning sky. As we live at a high altitude in a rural mountain environment, the ISS sightings are unaffected by atmospheric variants such as one might find at lower altitude or in a city.
Brian was walking his dog the other morning during one of our ISS sojourns and he stopped to chat. My wife explained why our necks were craned heavenwards and he stopped in his busy routine to join us in this “visit” with the ISS. As he wrote in his EDN blog, “… right on schedule the ISS emerged on the southwest horizon a few minutes later, glittering brightly in the reflected light of the partially illuminated moon and pending dawn. We were able to discern it for nearly the entire duration of its six-minute (it was moving fast) sojourn across the sky…it disappeared from view shortly before dipping beneath the northeast skyline due to contending illumination for the soon-to-rise sun. I was admittedly quite moved by the event.” (You may read Brian’s entire blog at at this direct link to the EDN website).
As we work with satellites and space and technologies driving all forward for communication and exploration sake, we tend to forget how truly amazing our industry is, especially to those who work in other environments, even highly technical ones. Human manufactured orbiting bodies, created through knowledge derived from decades of research, technical breakthroughs, exhaustive people hours, money, and superb effort, link our communities across the globe.
In the beautifully produced, and superbly executed, “The Space Report (2008)” from The Space Foundation, they report global space revenue from government and private resources reached US$251 billion in 2007. That represented an 11 percent growth rate over the previous year. Of that amount, more than three-fourths of that economic activity resulted from the acquisition of commercial satellite-based products and services (55 percent) and U.S. government spending (25 percent). The total revenue for space products and services is estimated by The Space Foundation to be US$138.83 billion anincrease of 20 percent over 2006.
Let’s also consider Euroconsult’s latest research and analysis regarding satellite market growth in 2007. In their recently released “World Satellite Communications & Broadcasting Markets Survey, Market Forecasts to 2017,” they reveal FSS grew by 8 percent in transponder demand and 9.5 percent in overall revenues. Euroconsult breaks the world down into 12 regions, and there was transponder growth of more than 5 percent in nine of those regions during 2007. Satellite market revenues reached US$8.9 billion, according to their report, with US$12 billion expected in the FSS market by 2017. You can learn more about the Euroconsult report at this direct link.
As you are well aware, the economic news has been rather tumultuous of late, dulling the positive analysis of the industry for last year. I had occasion to communicate with the President of MITEQ, Howard Hausman, regarding this concern.
“Like most companies, MITEQ is concerned about the economy,” he said. “We are in a business that grows more intensely when the economic conditions are favorable, but with proper guidance and innovation, growth is viable under all economic conditions. Engineering and innovation are commonplace at MITEQ, and in uncertain times, that is focused on the basics. A concentration on development efforts needs to be implemented to provide better value in basic system components to provide simplified solutions to make our customers system integration easier and more cost effective.”
Those terms “innovation”, “better value”,“simplified solutions” all draw to customer service as the high earth orbit for continued growth, even when economic environment is less than robust. Customers will always need to communicate, a process most efficiently resolved by satellites.
Given the glowing earnings’ reports, our industry must be doing something right, in spite of the occasional launch failure, increasing insurance rates, partnerships that fail to materialize, and so on. As Brian so aptly stated in his EDN blog regarding our ISS moment, “I was admittedly quite moved…” Our industry has more of a positive effect on others than we realize, and all to our benefit.
—Hartley Lesser, Editorial Director
