Specialist
Executive at Satellite Industry Association (SIA)
Agenda
- Competitive landscape including key secular dynamics
- Growth opportunities – last mile and traffic management
- Existing hurdles focusing on commercialisation and cost challenges
- Short-to-long-term outlook
Questions
1.
What’s your overview of the commercial and defence space market? What key secular trends should we monitor?
2.
How would you contrast the initiation of companies and the new entrants with the space industry’s actual asset deployment?
3.
How would you characterise the need for additional space infrastructure? Can you expand on the different areas where infrastructure is needed, perhaps in physical launch infrastructure as well as for last-mile tugs, booster stations, traffic management and space debris?
4.
What might traffic management entail for the space infrastructure market? How do you assess this considering you mentioned traffic management sits with commerce departments? What growth rate do you anticipate and how might this play out in practice?
5.
What traffic management model do you think would make the most sense, given you’ve alluded to multiple models?
6.
Do you have any ideas about what form a fee-based model might take? What might those fees entail?
7.
Momentus has projected that space transportation and in-space infrastructure could have a TAM of around USD 1.5bn through 2024, including in-orbit services such as satellite maintenance. What are your thoughts on the need for in-space transportation services, thinking about the last mile aspect between the launch sites and the different orbits?
8.
You mentioned there has been a lot of work on a lower-cost solution for boosters that might be going on satellites. How low could players get the cost of those boosters to make them economical, meaning they wouldn’t need Momentus-type companies or transportation?
9.
Who do you think are the key players in space infrastructure services besides Momentus?
10.
What do you think are the main barriers to entry for players attempting to provide in-orbit services or physical space infrastructure?
11.
Could there be enough room for legacy players as well as new entrants, including some defence primes? You mentioned SpaceX and satellite companies such as Maxar.
12.
How would you assess the timeline for adoption of last mile services, especially as the number of satellites going into space is doubling and Momentus seems to be the main or one of the few players here?
13.
Do you expect LEO [low Earth orbit], MEO [medium Earth orbit] or GEO [geostationary Earth orbit] to become the cornerstone for commercially focused companies? Do you think it will be a mix?
14.
What do you think are the benefits and drawbacks of MEO, given you noted some of the benefits to GEO and LEO?
15.
Momentus has talked about the idea of satellite-as-a-service, with an in-orbit satellite acting as a servicer, able to host and provide power for customer payloads already in orbit. How do you think that idea will play out over the next few years? Is there a need for this, especially as we’ve discussed needing to resupply some of these satellites?
16.
Do you anticipate any of the three orbits needing in-orbit services more than the others?
17.
How do you think the space debris issue will be resolved? Might this be resolved by a government agency or agencies dealing with space traffic management? Do you anticipate more commercially focused companies dealing with debris?
18.
Do you anticipate the commercial industry being better able to quickly address space debris, and will that complicate the convergence with government organizations addressing space traffic management in the future?
19.
What part of the physical infrastructure would you say has not been thought about or needs to be thought about more? How does that tie into your thoughts on continued market saturation?
20.
How might infrastructure needs be different for human space flight initiatives and projects from players and agencies such as Nasa and SpaceX? How could this tie into growth in commercial and defence?
21.
What is your outlook for the space infrastructure market over the next 1-2 years? Is there anything to note?
22.
Is there anything that we should keep in mind over the next 5-10 years? Obviously, this is dependent on the near-term developments.
23.
Is there anything else that you think we should add or highlight?
