The satellite industry tackles the most critical and necessary elements of communnication every second of every hour of every day — satellites do not rest.
Without the talents, expertise and innovative approaches taken by the thousands who create the next generation of intra- and inter-satellite links that tie our world and space together, havoc could well be the result.
As Senior Columnist Chris Forrester reported from Silicon Valley Space Week, this year’s Satellite Innovation event offered many of the industry’s leading experts presenting their thoughts and knowledge to the more than 1,000 attendees over the two day, Satellite Innovation trade event — the end result? The realization that New Space is being driven to even greater heights and success.
Spectrum is
hot, hot, hot!
Drew Svor, Partner: Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, opened his panel session at SVSW’s Satellite Innovation by specifying the actual spectrum that businesses were interested in. “Everyone seems to be moving higher and further away from traditional Ka and Ku,” he suggested.
Dr. Diana Gamzina, CEO at Elve, said that some of these higher frequency banks were now ready for usage and qualification for performance had been carried out.
Scott Patrick, Executive Director, NTIA Office of Spectrum Management, said that the industry was in an exciting time, and he was especially interested in the 18 GHz bands.
Dr. Whitney Lohmeyer, Chief Technologist at the FCC’s Space Bureau, said that the processes at the FCC have to be managed, as well as the ITU, and creative thought is required. She reminded delgates that there were challenges, but she saw them being solved.
Brian Barnett, CEO/Founder, Solstar Space Co., reminded attendees that his company were the first to place commercial Wi-Fi into a Blue Origin spacecraft and that his firm is “...ready for the Moon, because everything will need Wi-Fi.”
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link.
EO: “The
economics
are key”
The snappily-named ‘Servicing Diverse Customer Needs with Next-Gen EO and Geospatial Intelligence’ panel was headed by moderator Dr. James Crawford, Chair and CEO at Orbital Insight, who said the panel would be focused on Earth Observation (EO) and what was new and exciting.
Dr. Crawford said the Ukraine war was a wake-up call for nations who realized they did not have their own access to EO and this was driving demand for both hardware and software.
Alan Greenberg, Co-founder/CEO at Loft Orbital, said that outside the usual major sovereign states, the smaller nations were no longer wanting to buy data in, but in the past year they wanted their own access to space and data.
Dr. Shay Har-Noy, CEO/Edgybees, said the past discussions tended to be focused on whether this or that development would work. “That has changed. We are now talking about accuracy and specs and predictability and trust in the data.”
Dr. Alex Saltman, CEO/GeoOptics, said it was all about more capability on more satellites. “Satellites can gather 5-times more data than they can download. But if we can process while in orbit then there will be more changes.”
Frank Backes, CEO/Capella Space, said he saw both sovereign requirements and ‘new’ markets only growing and demanding more data and whether there should be ground-based processing or processing while on-orbit.
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link.
Raising Cash for
Space Industry
Remains
Challenging
Silicon Valley Space Week was praised by Millbank’s partner and panel chairperson, Dara Panahy, who said the conference sessions were now the benchmark and that going global was the next step for SatNews. Panahy asked the panel colleagues during this session to give a snapshot of how they saw the industry today.
Mike Collett, Managing Partner at Promus Ventures, said the construction of the market was very different today but perhaps was now ready to turn from a challenging recent past. Promus was an early investor in Rocket Lab and was pleased with the 60 to 70 percent growth in annual revenues.
Dr. Ronald Epstein, Managing Director/Aerospace & Defense at Bank of America Securities, said they were cautious especially ahead of the U.S. election and uncertainty as to whether the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates and by how much and added that pace needs more institutional investors.
Tyler Letarte, Principle at AE Industrial Partners, said his portfolio was now seeing opportunities although they were still “scratching their heads occasionally” over valuations.
Sita Sonty, Partner & MD at Alix Partners, said it was inevitable that businesses which were underperforming were under pressure and that they’ve seen $200-$300 million per month [being invested] but Space was only a small fraction of this volume.
John Stack, Snr. Managing Director, A&D Investment Banking at B. Riley Securities cautioned that he expected some M&A activity for those players who were less successful.
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link.
Vertical Integration
is Vital – Maybe
Brooke Stokes, partner, McKinsey & Company, chaired the SVSW session which examined Vertical Integration in the space industry. She explained that anti-trust compliance and scrutiny could often be a problem in some elements of vertical integration.
David Gelerman, CEO, SpaceBridge, said the name of the game was efficiency and the sort of integration that Starlink had employed very successfully was a perfect example. But everything had to be less expensive, whether user terminals, ground stations, satellites… The old-fashioned way was to build a satellite over five years.
Ryan Kelley, shareholder, Greenberg Trauig, said that regulations could not be ignored. As for integration itself, do you make everything in-house, which means you can be self-reliant, but it could also prove to be expensive.
Pratish Shah, GM/US, AiTech, explained that you see a spacecraft’s backbone ideally was vertically integrated especially in a craft’s payload. “But do not ignore ROI,” he cautioned.
Behzad Koosha, BD Lead for Space Architecture, Sidus Space, suggested that there were obvious challenges in some cases with the supply chain. Covid was a nightmare and it caused real problems for the industry as a whole.
Scott Rodriguez, VP/Government Programs and NASA HUNCH Program Manager, Voyager Space, said that when any discussion on Vertical Integration came up, SpaceX was mentioned. He stressed NASA was different and operated with a different model.
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link.
MDA Space:
There’s probabilities
for multiple new
space stations
Mike Greenley, CEO at MDA Space, explained that the Canadian-based company was now seeing revenues of $1 billion annually. He delivered a fascinating Keynote at SVSW that covered multiple topics and which gave a remarkable insight into MDA’s current strategy.
He said, “We are experiencing rapid growth. We are experiencing 25-30 percent growth and see that continuing at that rate over the next few years. We are enjoying a good run.
“The statistics suggest a $1.8 trillion global market, but the Chinese view the space opportunity as 5 to 10-times larger than we in the West,” he told attendees.
“But today there is considerable transition, from sole government customers to a greater commercial growth and this is representing huge growth opportunities. Almost our entire pipeline is now commercial. The ISS will go out of use in the next 4-5 years but we have three or four new space station suggestions to look at. But there’s also a closer relationship between government and commercial, and where government agencies are buying all aspects of commercial infrastructure. This includes military activity, and technologies are being shared.
“Innovation is accelerating. Launch, and the cost and capacity of launch is tumbling. The level of professionalism at SpaceX is impressive, and these trends are helping hugely and driving much of the current growth.”
To read the Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link.
SES: “We Can
Collaborate”
Mohammed Marashi, SVP/Future Business & Innovation, SES, delivered a fascinating Keynote at the SVSW and its Satellite Innovation sessions, explaining the might of SES which carries 6,400 TV channels to some 363 million viewers in 130 countries. The fastest-growing segment at SES was non-video, in particular mobility and data and SES is building rapidly on these changes.
Marashi said that SES was now investing in start-ups and was co-developing new products and working with consortia on these developments and also collaborating with its existing customers on new developments.
He described these developments as being “radical” for SES, and even “disruptive” and the intention was to accelerate how things were evolving. The old view at SES, even in terms of the O3b fleet, came from its experience with geostationary satellites. In reality, he said, we needed to be thinking more of the O3b fleet as LEO craft.
He showed delegates an example of one of these collaborations which was with French news agency AFP and how SES and its 360 offering was speeding up the distribution of its video news feeds.
AFPTV is now using an SES-developed interface that was designed to keep AFP as the world’s Number 1 video news agency and enabled them to make the most of its platform while boosting features available for AFP.
To read the Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link.
D2D still facing
challenges
Direct-to-Device (D2D) was the hottest of hot topics and a panel discussion at Silicon Valley Space Week’s Satellite Innovation event brought the challenges and opportunities into sharp focus.
The panel, chaired by Lisa Dreher, Managing Director, Guideforce, examined today’s status of the D2D sector and where it was headed and successfully monetizing the D2D technology and its target $30 billion of reported potential business. She mentioned the “missing’ players” – at least, as far as the panel was concerned, and specifically mentioned Starlink and AST SpaceMobile.
Kevin Cohen, Commercial Director, Direct-To-Device, Viasat Inc., and which operates in L-band, said Viasat was creating new businesses and the potential of hundreds of millions of devices connected via satellite.
Greg Pelton, CTO, Iridium Technologies, said that one element that could not be ignored was that users would not be getting a 5G experience from satellite, and it was, at the moment, uncertain as to how consumers would react to satellite-delivered connectivity.
Vijay Krishnan, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, Skylo Technologies, said that regulation, spectrum access as well as technology all need to come together.
Rich Pang, Head of Business Development, Amazon Kuiper Government Solutions, explained that Kuiper was a little late in launching its rockets (now scheduled towards mid-to-end January 2025).
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link.
Standardization
will deliver greater
benefits
A high-level panel at SVSW and its Satellite Innovation strand brought the CEO of MDA (Mike Greenley), the head of OneWeb Technologies (Kevin Steen) and Frances O’Flaherty (CFO) Rivada Space Networks) to discuss future strategies for satellite operators.
Chairman Aashu Viramani, SVP, Cambridge Consultants), heard the panel agree that standardization, and the ability to consider hundreds of satellites in an order book, would lead to lower prices and even greater innovation for the industry.
O’Flaherty explained that Rivada’s objective was not so much in the traditional satellite market, but in satisfying high-end clients whether governments, financial institutions and was very much focused on some specific niches with is high-speed optical connectivity.
OneWeb’s Steen said that his Eutelsat-owned LEO constellation of 650 craft
on-orbit but was not focused on individual consumers but in linking with the world’s telcos and run traffic for them. He said he was partnering with telcos although in the context of their own relationships with some key customers, not to compete, but to aid the client.
Rivada’s O’Flaherty said that Rivada’s view was that some telcos were clearly in difficult positions. And Greenley amplified MDA’s approach that the move to standardized satellites was moving rapidly as operators recognized such will deliver greater benefits delivered a lower price and a far faster move to market.
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link.
Capturing Ground
System Market
Share
Nathan de Ruiter, Partner and Manaaging Director, Novaspace, chaired this session regarding Capturing Ground System Market Share at the Mountain View Satellite Innovation conference.
Participating in the session was Ron Faith, the President and Chief Executive Officer at RBC Signals.
Billie Sims, VP/Business Development, North America for Gilat Satellite Networks, said that virtualisation was important. He noted that having thousands of terminals deployed and upgrading them was frequently difficult to accomplish. “We need to solve customers problems especially those who want to move away from ‘black boxes’ to software-based solutions.”
Don Claussen, CEO, ST Engineering iDirect, agreed and said clients were increasingly interested in getting away from hardware and wanted to move away from the initial CapEx model and instead want an OpEx model, paying as they grow their business. But the new platform has to incorporate the old technology with very much a seamless migration from one to the other.
Also involved in the panel discussions was Aaron Hawkins, Director, Real-time Earth Ground Service, Viasat Inc.
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link.
Trends: COVID
and AI are Both
Worries
Noel Rimalovski, Managing Director, GH Partners, opened Day 2 of Satellite Innovation and discussed Emerging Trends in Satellite Manufacturing. He polled the audience and 80% of respondents said they believed that the COVID pandemic was still affecting production and component lead times.
Col. (Ret) Dean Bellamy, EVP/National Security Space, Redwire, said his experience would reflect the move toward smaller satellites and the past five years’ experience had shown how important it was that satellite manufacturers could depend on their suppliers in terms of reliability. Another trend was the expectation or even requirement for earlier milestone financial payments.
Chris Winslet, General Manager, Blue Canyon Technologies, said his key trend was greater use of automation, and that cycle times were being helped and reduced dramatically.
John Borrego, VP of Production, Machina Labs, is already using large robots in the firm’s manufacturing processes and building its structures. He explained that aerospace engineers were a dying breed and automation was essential to fill the gap.
Karolis Senvaitis, Director of Engineering Operations, Kongsberg NanoAvionics, said that integration could be dangerous. Automation must start with the design stage directly through to the testing process.
Tim Shroyer, CTO, CPI, builds ground stations, amplifiers and related equipment and stated he was comfortable that most times CPI was highly competitive when manufacturing its own kit, “but not every time. You have to be flexible.”
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link
Silicon Valley Space Week brought together acknowledged experts in the M&A field—Alexis Sáinz, Partner, Hogan Lovells, moderated the session which included solid advice from investment bankers, advisors and valuers. “We are in a wave of massive industry consolidation, with SES and Intelsat, Viasat and Inmarsat and others,” she said.
Karl Schmidt, Managing Director, KippsDeSanto, said that the markets were good at the moment and that trades were taking place at a rate of around 250 aerospace deals last year but 2024 is quieter and not helped by the upcoming U.S. election.
Armand Musey, Founder and President, Summit Ridge Group, said that the IPO market was not strong today, although that does create opportunities from Private Equity players. The overwhelming influence is the role of SpaceX and Starlink which has dramatically affected the industry and, in particular, the FSS sector and launch providers and their related suppliers. Musey addressed the SES/Intelsat transaction, saying that most of the FSS operators have been trading at below book value, despite including the cash they received from the C-band sale of spectrum.
Francois Chopard, CEO, Starburst, explained that in 2021 and 2022 and in late-stage start-ups, activity rose to $15-$20 billion, but since then has decreased.
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link
MSSA: Aiming for
seamless and a
gnostic roaming
Mark Dankberg, Chairman of the Board, CEO, Co-founder, Viasat Inc., addressed delegates and said he was focusing his presentation on new concepts in D2D and usage and interoperability by non-terrestrial networks.
Dankberg introduced the new Mobile Satellite Services Association (MSSA), of which Viasat was a foundingmember, but said that infrastructure now being developed needed standards. “As with terrestrial where such standards exist, but satellite is a very different architecture, and where are the business models?”
Dankberg said that standards are vital if national sovereignty among the world’s operators was to be managed successfully, and interoperability had to be managed – and this has never been managed before in the satellite industry.
The promise of what is coming, he said, is dependent on dynamic cooperation between the D2D players, and then to build a new industry. “The MSSA members have pre-agreed some standards and ways of working which would enable a worldwide market to emerge and not to challenge a nation’s sovereignty.”
Spectrum, and coordination among and between operators is vital. “We all want seamless handover, but what can we manage? We also need roaming ability: None of the existing satellite suppliers work with their rival’s equipment. Devices need to be interoperable within and across satellites and constellations.”
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link
PNT is developing,
and alternate
systems are
needed
Dr. Bryan Benedict, Senior Director of Innovation & Satellite Programs, SES, delivered a superb presentation that was completely focussed on PNT (Position, Navigation and Timing), and asked what role there could be from commercial interests in ‘new’ PNT applications.
He listed the six established PNT systems (GPS, Russia’s Glonass, China’s BeiDou, Europe’s Galileo, Japan’s QZSS and India’s IRNSS) and showcased how dependent the world was now on GPS-type systems.
“Our kids have no idea how to use a map such is their dependence on GPS. But there’s more with the U.S. and Europe’s improved GPS and now with super accuracy,” he said.
However, there are numerous challenges with hostile Jamming and Spoofing / Cyber interference.
“There is very heavy jamming taking place today, especially over the Ukraine. There’s also the risk from satellite collisions and the resulting debris field which can affect PNT systems,” Dr. Benedict stated.
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link
Optical Data
Transfer needs
standards, and
volume production
Chris Quilty, Co-CEO Quilty Space, explained for delegates to this session that optical connectivity was increasingly important and generating considerable interest in the space community. “Now we have constellations measured in the thousands and a market demand for optical links. But we need standards, of course.” He noted the industry needed 100 Gb/s capacity and questioned whether this would require new satellites and not just uprated comms equipment.
Gregg Burgess, VP/Space Systems at General Atomics Electromagnetic System, said standards were vital for space comms. The Space Development Agency (SDA) is creating common and joint standards, but these still need to be incorporated and tested.
Dr. Inuk Kang, Director of Space Systems Engineering at CACI, agreed, but said that the SDA requirement was mostly for LEO applications and there was a need for a standard for longer inter-satellite distances. He said there was work being done on a universal translator capable of 100 Gb/s and costing less than $100,000 per unit, but again, this needed standards
Justin Luczyk, GM of TESAT Government at Tesat Spacecom praised the SDA initiative and its financial backing for the development of the standard. He stressed that the next generation of satellites would need backward compatibility for hardware that’s going to be on-orbit 8, 10 or 15 years from now..”
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link
Will SpaceX
and Starlink
dominate?
Dr. Tim Farrar, president of TMF Associates, moderated the New Satellite Architectures: On-board Processing, Optical Crosslinks and Interoperability session. The session’s experts covered a great deal of ground and Dr. Farrar said optical satellite links demanded more examination.
Jeff Thornberg, CEO, Portal Space Systems, who has worked for SpaceX, said that the market is ‘duking’ it out and there’s the potential for government to make a decision as to whether it will allow one major player to dominate simply because it is inexpensive and with considerable coverage.
Dr. Robbie Robertson, Co-founder/CEO, Sedaro, said there were options now for the U.S. Dept. of Defense to decide what it should do with its important financial backing. “Government’s money spend is important...the DoD budgeting rules should be a guide.”
Francis O’Flaherty, Managing Director, Rivada Space Networks, praised SpaceX and how rapidly it had made progress with its coverage and service. He mentioned the recent SpaceX deal with agricultural supplier John Deere. He noted,“There are many nations which are very concerned about Starlink, and they want to be in control of their own networks.”
Dr. Michael Bartholomeusz, CEO at NOVI, said he sensed that SpaceX was focussed and not that interested in Earth Observation, for example, which was NOVI’s zone of interest.
Tom Barton, Co-founder/CEO, Antaris, said he did not sense that SpaceX, despite what it was doing, would wholly dominate the segment.
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link
OneWeb
examined
in detail
Recently, a SpaceX rocket launched the final batch of OneWeb satellites into their high orbits, ready to complete the operator’s constellation and provide in-orbit spares. Kevin Steen, President/CEO of OneWeb Technologies (and CEO of Eutelsat Americas) was interviewed by Janna Lewis (SVP/Policy and General Counsel, Astroscale US) and updated delegates as to OneWeb’s latest thinking, especially in regard to relations with the U.S. DoD.
Janna Lewis asked Kevin Steen about his early days. He said that he had only been in the space industry for some 10 years, and in his experience, those then involved were largely focused on RF. However, in recent years, he had seen multiple satellite spot beams, satellite development in less than two years, with a commensurate fall in costs.
Steen said there had been other changes, not least of which is fresh thinking from a more commercial point-of-view. “Our coming together (Eutelsat and OneWeb) brought together geostationary and LEO assets, and where OneWeb would not compete with its terrestrial clients. We can do unique things with pricing, which is exciting for us and our client end-users. It allows everyone to start being creative.”
He was asked about Eutelsat and it being a ‘foreign parent.’ It placed extra obligations on OneWeb and Eutelsat to observe regulatory requirements.
Steen said that under the overall umbrella he was now able to exploit the many advantageous ‘pros’ compared to the ‘cons.’
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link
Launch cadence,
and rivaling
SpaceX
Moderator Randy Segal (Partner, Hogan Lovells) said that besides SpaceX, there was currently a limited launch cadence from rivals. Panellists at the sessions each stressed how their launch organizations were coming on stream and, in some cases, being successful with their offerings.
Adam Spice (CFO, Rocket Lab) said that, while he was not matching SpaceX’s 150 launches per year, and that SpaceX had, in his view, a 10 year lead on the market, that Rocket Lab’s Electron vehicle was coming. “Besides, if a launch competitor does not have a reusable vehicle then they might as well not be in the market. The barriers to entry are high.”
Devon Papandrew, VP/Business Development, Stoke Space, said that the market wanted extra capacity and many wanted an alternative to SpaceX. “But even if all of us on this panel are successful I don’t think it will change the cadence much, and SpaceX will still dominate. But reusability is a different beast in terms of design. Vertical integration is probably essential going forward.”
Dr. Giulio Ranzo, CEO at Avio, explained that ‘by law’ his company is not permitted to launch U.S.-based satellites. “Regulators don’t like monopolies for launch.”
Pablo Gallego Sanmiguel, SVP/Sales & Customers, PLD Space, said PLD was already competing with SpaceX and was itself targeting carrying humans on its rockets.
Israel Figueroa, Director of National Security Programs, Firefly Aerospace, said that Space Planes, with a single stage to orbit, are at least 5 years away.
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link
Building and
Exploiting Diversity
in Collaboration
Silicon Valley Space Week wrapped its Satellite Innovation sessions with a panel that discussed the benefits of collaboration and how to leverage supplier diversity and technology.
Miguel Valero (Managing Director, Space Strategies LLC) moderated his experts and talked about diversity and the new, industry demands.
Bradley Williams, Associate Director for Flight Programs, NASA HQ, (the Heliophysics science mission which studies the sun), said he had seven launches planned for 2025 as part of a 16-mission. modestly budgeted project portfolio. Williams added that his ‘lean in’ strategy was focused on the small satellite arena, and his smaller budgets meant leveraging the supply chain for maximum value.
Dr. Markus Geiss, Commercial Director, DCUBED, (with a focus on release actuators, solar arrays “and anything that can be folded and which goes big in space”) and although a start-up, said that from a commercial perspective, it had just opened a Denver office in the U.S. The company’s DCUBED products use of Origami-style structures that are – they say – “easy to manufacture and use.”
Patrick Shannon, Founder/CEO, Trust Point, is building a fully commercial, next-generation, GPS system that will complement the existing GPS operation. He said he did not think that vertical integration, while valuable, was quite so essential. More important, he said, was a good supply chain expert on the staff. The talent that’s available in a supply chain is super-important, and becomes very valuable if it can be managed. “We have to build a few hundred satellites, and we needed very dependable suppliers on this journey with us.”
To read the complete Satellite Innovation posting, please access this link