With multiple active conflicts happening throughout the world and geopolitical concerns rising across the board, commercial satellite leaders say these developments put the importance of satellite communications in stark light \u2013 and put pressure on the industry to deliver. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe geopolitical developments that we\u2019re seeing are creating some of the biggest commercial opportunities for Telesat<\/strong> and the rest of us. It\u2019s all of the increased defense spending [from the] NATO countries; it\u2019s how the war has unfolded in Ukraine; and how consequential LEO satellite communications have been to that war; and some of the ruptures that we\u2019ve seen around the world,\u201d Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg said Tuesday during the Opening General Session of SATShow Week on March 24. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s incumbent upon us to step up \u2014 to make the investments and provide the capabilities that are so needed right now,\u201d Goldberg added. <\/p>\n To that end, Telesat recently announced it is making technology changes to the Lightspeed Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation to add military Ka-band (Mil-Ka) spectrum to 156 satellites for defense and sovereignty programs. Goldberg noted this change dedicates 25% of the constellation\u2019s capacity to Mil-Ka. <\/p>\n As the UAE is currently under threat from attacks by Iran, the geopolitical situation is top of mind for Ali Al Hashemi, CEO of Space Services for Space42<\/strong>. The company serves as the UAE\u2019s space powerhouse, bringing together satellite communications, geospatial intelligence, and AI capabilities. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen the geopolitical problem happened in the region, we were very glad that we took this step forward [to form Space42], because it enhanced our sovereignty and the applications that we deliver. It showed our resilience in the current situation,\u201d Al Hashemi said. <\/p>\n Another way Space42 is focusing on UAE space sovereignty is Equatys, its joint venture for direct-to-device services with Viasat, which Al Hashemi noted puts the needs of sovereignty and independence as a top priority. <\/p>\n \u201cWe need to rethink everything. And Equatys is an example of rethinking the example of sharing the infrastructure, sharing the spectrum, and taking steps forward,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Viasat<\/strong> CEO Mark Dankberg was open about the threats that operators are responding to, which Viasat has a keen understanding of after the 2022 KA-SAT attack in Europe. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at geopolitical hot spots around the world, it\u2019s not just the military systems that are being attacked. It\u2019s the commercial ones as well, and we\u2019re only seeing the very beginnings of those,\u201d Dankberg said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a need to rethink almost everything about the satellite industry. Different places around the world are grasping those realities at different paces. But you know, whenever there\u2019s change, there\u2019s opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Dankberg noted this shift creates a particular opportunity for regional operators like Space42 that are closely tied in with their parts of the world. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve already always seen the overlap in requirements, how the underlying technology can serve both commercial and sovereign needs. Now, given the geopolitical realities, countries are realizing that they need more than what they\u2019ve been buying before,\u201d Dankberg said. \u201cIt certainly creates opportunities for regional satellite operators \u2014 they\u2019re very closely tied to their governments and their region.\u201d <\/p>\n A fractured geopolitical environment causes an impact to business models for global operators like SES<\/strong>, CEO Adel Al Saleh said. \u201cFiguring out \u2014 how do you serve Europe, the U.S., Asia, and other markets is becoming a challenge for us,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n One of the big takeaways from the discussion was that operators are speaking publicly about the need for changes in business models and the speed of technology. <\/p>\n \u201cThe speed of innovation continues to just accelerate,\u201d Al Saleh said. \u201cWe can\u2019t have five- to seven-year development cycles because of these announcements that keep coming. Whatever you design has to be flexible in a way that you\u2019re able to upgrade it as you go forward. It\u2019s no longer a five-year cycle.\u201d <\/p>\n As an example of that change, SES on Tuesday shared more details about its meoSphere next-generation Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) constellation, placing an initial order of 28 satellites from startup K2 Space. SES will provide its own software-defined payloads, and K2 Space will build out the high-power satellite platforms. SES said a series of pathfinders will launch over the next three years, and the meoSphere is targeted for operation by 2030<\/p>\n An SES representative confirmed to Via Satellite<\/i> that SES has multiple payloads on the upcoming K2 Space \u201cGravitas\u201d mission, which will be K2 Space\u2019s first launch. <\/p>\n Dankberg described the current situation in the industry as \u201ccapital investment wars.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cSatellite communications is one of the most capital intensive industries in the world. In an environment where you\u2019re competing both economically and from a national security perspective \u2014 you need to aggregate capital in a way that is competitive with entities that have unlimited access to capital,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Eutelsat<\/strong> CEO Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Fallacher sees interoperability and standards as one of the best ways that satellite operators can work together. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been working for 30 years in the telecom industry. What struck me [about] the space industry and what my first wish would be is [to have] open standards, interoperability,\u201d Fallacher said. \u201cThis is also a way to have more cooperation between actors that are around this table,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg said there\u2019s room for improvement in how the technology providers work together, in terms of competing against vertically integrated players like Starlink and Amazon Leo. <\/p>\n \u201cTelesat is still mostly in the mode where we\u2019re a service provider and we\u2019re procuring technology, satellites, user terminals from third parties. I think it puts us at a potential competitive disadvantage to our competitors who are vertically integrated. You pick up some things by not being vertically integrated, but, there\u2019s some risks around that too,\u201d Goldberg said. <\/p>\n \u201cMy number one request would be trying to find a way to align our interests so that we can all in the ecosystem remain competitive against these other companies out there that are vertically integrated,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n The operator CEOs were polled in a rapid-fire round on the top markets they see for growth potential, here\u2019s what they said. <\/p>\n Fallacher: \u201dWe see a lot of tractions in commercial aviation, in the private jet aviation segment and also the maritime segment.\u201d <\/p>\n Al Hashemi: \u201cD2D is a big promise. We are simply creating our own supplier because we didn\u2019t find the supplier who will offer this a seamless platform that can offer satellite operators an infrastructure-sharing platform.\u201d <\/p>\n Al Saleh: \u201cAero is exciting. We don\u2019t talk a lot about media. We love our media business. Yes, it\u2019s declining, and yes, it\u2019s challenged, but it is fundamentally strong and cash generative. The demand for real-time distribution of media like the Super Bowl and Olympics and PGA, Formula 1, is buoyant.\u201d<\/p>\n Dankberg: \u201cCommercial mobility. Because of the rise of autonomy, autonomous land vehicles, air vehicles, the mobility market is enormous. I think we have partnerships with every one of the operators up here in one form or another on mobility.\u201d <\/p>\n Goldberg: \u201cSomething that is more obscure today, but is going to have growing importance in the future, is space-to-space communications, as we develop systems of systems and have more interoperability between constellations and different types of constellations.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With multiple active conflicts happening throughout the world and geopolitical concerns rising across the board, commercial satellite leaders say these developments put the importance of satellite communications in stark light \u2013 and put pressure on the industry to deliver. \u201cThe geopolitical developments that we\u2019re seeing are creating some of the biggest commercial opportunities for Telesat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A Push to Move Faster <\/strong><\/h3>\n
Top Markets for Growth<\/b><\/h3>\n