{"id":58656,"date":"2020-11-11T20:17:08","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T12:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/major-launch-ceos-see-a-saturated-market-for-dedicated-micro-launchers\/"},"modified":"2020-11-11T20:17:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T12:17:08","slug":"major-launch-ceos-see-a-saturated-market-for-dedicated-micro-launchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/major-launch-ceos-see-a-saturated-market-for-dedicated-micro-launchers\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Launch CEOs See a Saturated Market for Dedicated Micro Launchers"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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A screenshot of the launch panel at World Satellite Business Week Virtual Edition. Photo: Euroconsult<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

While launch executives from Arianespace<\/strong>, Blue Origin<\/strong>, International Launch Services<\/strong> (ILS), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries<\/strong> (MIH), SpaceX<\/strong> and United Launch Alliance<\/strong> (ULA) differ on their views of how many Geostationary (GEO) satellites will be launched in the next few years, all agree that dedicated smallsat launchers face an increasingly tough market and that not all will survive in the long term.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Euroconsult<\/strong>\u2018s World Satellite Business Week Virtual event, Tiphaine Louradour, president of ILS, said, \u201cFor these micro launchers, it could be about addressing more of a government need. We think constellations are focused more on the reliability from launchers. We can offer different vehicles [for constellations]. As we talk about the development of future launch vehicles, the importance of government is key.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephane Israel, chairman and CEO of Arianespace, believes that smallsat rideshare solutions compete in an exciting market, but the overall value of this market remains limited, especially compared to the constellation market. \u201cYou don\u2019t need micro launchers to fly satellites to LEO [Low-Earth Orbit]. You have the mass market of constellations going to LEO. There is only one micro launcher successful today. Its success is linked to the DoD. They want quick and responsive access to space. If it is only relying on the commercial market, I think they would have a problem with their business case. If people need quick and responsive access to space, there could be a business case for micro launchers. It is open to question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tory Bruno, president and CEO of ULA believes the shakeout taking place amongst these new launch vehicles will ultimately be good for the industry. He believes that by the middle of next year there will be a more normal launch market, and the rideshare option is here to stay.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis time last year, we were able to count a huge number of startups for micro launchers,\u201d said Bruno. \u201cThose startup companies were dependent on external investment. There is obviously a lot less now. I don\u2019t expect that market to recover. There is really only room for two to three of these. While it is disheartening to see that investment destroyed, there is some silver lining that this investment has been destroyed earlier rather than later. The fundamental challenge is dollars per kilogram. It is really a niche market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Space COO and President Gwynne Shotwell agreed that micro launchers are a tough business and she doesn\u2019t believe there is room for more than two or three micro launchers.<\/p>\n

Clay Mowry, vice president of Sales, Marketing Customer Experience for Blue Origin spoke of the huge potential for Blue Origin to launch satellites for Amazon\u2019s Kuiper constellation in the future, as Blue Origin is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. \u201cYou make money doing deployments for large constellations. Amazon is a publicly traded company. Blue Origin is privately held,\u201d said Mowry. \u201cWe hope to launch satellites for them. It is an incredible constellation they are looking to deploy. We are excited about that business case. We hope there will be other constellations out there, we think this is the most dynamic segment in the market right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ko Ogasawara, vice president and senior chief engineer of the Space Systems Division for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said the launch provider will look to adapt to the changing market and develop more of a capability to launch small satellites.<\/p>\n

No dedicated small satellite launch providers participated in the discussion.<\/p>\n

In regards to GEO launches, Israel said that Arianespace has recovered lost ground after a tough last two to three years. \u201cA lot of this is due to the C-band opportunity. Thirteen C-band satellites out of 20 satellites in this industry were C-band. It is a rebound, but it is a very specific situation in C-band,\u201d Israel said. \u201cWe expect the market to be more at 15 satellites per year. It will be a changing market. Overall the GTO market will be [valued at] two-thirds of what it has been between 2005 and 2015. You will have more diversity in the market going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

But SpaceX\u2019s Shotwell thought this was too optimistic. \u201cI don\u2019t anticipate double-digits in [GEO] satellites orders next year. I would be surprised,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The impact of COVID was briefly discussed, as some launches have been pushed out and delayed as a result. Bruno highlighted insurance for launches as a key issue. \u201cWe have seen commercial missions that have delayed out of this year because of the temporary constriction of the capital markets. Some have moved missions out to get insurance sorted. There have been insurance issues for some of our customers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shotwell said SpaceX has seen some customers delayed, but she isn\u2019t aware that any of those delays were related to capital or insurance. Instead, she cited weather as a major source of delays. \u201cFinding good weather days at Cape Canaveral hasn\u2019t been easy. The number of storms and high winds has been quite impactful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Shotwell predicted that 2021 could be interesting because one good thing to come out of this pandemic has been an insatiable demand for bandwidth. She thinks this will allow more telecom operators to think about new satellites and businesses.<\/p>\n

More from Euroconsult\u2019s World Satellite Business Week Virtual Edition: <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

[SES and Intelsat CEOs Clash on Approaches to Serving IFC Market]<\/em><\/p>\n

[SpaceX, Telesat, SES and Iridium Talk Constellation Markets and Competition]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A screenshot of the launch panel at World Satellite Business Week Virtual Edition. Photo: Euroconsult While launch executives from Arianespace, Blue Origin, International Launch Services (ILS), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MIH), SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA) differ on their views of how many Geostationary (GEO) satellites will be launched in the next few years, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57404,"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-58656","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\/58656"}],"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=58656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}