[Via Satellite 04-17-2014] Engineering giant Lockheed Martin <\/b>is making progress on its plans to reengage the commercial satellite market. At the core of this plan is the complete renovation of the company\u2019s flagship A2100 satellite bus. Lockheed Martin is reviewing every detail of the A2100 to modernize both the technology and the manufacturing process to make it competitive again in the commercial market.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past decade, with much of the focus on government programs, less emphasis was put on our commercial satellite business,\u201d said Mike Hamel, president of commercial ventures at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. \u201cBut not unlike many other companies, as the government markets have flattened, and with the uncertainty in federal budgets, we have increased our emphasis on the commercial space business, both the commercial communication satellites as well as the remote sensing programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lockheed Martin first manufactured the A2100 bus more than 20 years ago. Hamel described the bus as a \u201creal workhorse\u201d during the 1990s and into the 2000s, but since then it has lost its edge. The technology became dated and the platform\u2019s business proposition weakened. Aiming to reverse this trend, Lockheed Martin initiated a series of goals to revitalize the satellite bus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re targeting to achieve about a 35 percent cost reduction in our overall spacecraft development production cost and about 25 percent faster time to market, which we think will be right on the leading edge of what is being done today in the commercial and geostationary communications satellite business,\u201d said Hamel.<\/p>\n
To date, the company\u2019s efforts have already begun to prove themselves remunerative. Australia\u2019s first commercial Ka-band satellite, Jabiru 1, is built on the A2100 platform. The geostationary satellite recently passed its Critical Design Review (CDR), making way for its expected launch in 2015 aboard an Ariane 5. Australia-based NewSat<\/b> will operate Jabiru 1, and anticipates launching four more satellites between now and 2017.<\/p>\n
Sterne Agee<\/b> Senior Research Analyst Peter Arment is confident that Lockheed Martin\u2019s move back into the commercial realm should not be underestimated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were on the outside looking in for the last few years,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I think it\u2019s no question given the engineering resources and technical capabilities at Lockheed Martin; if they want to work their way back in, they certainly have the capability to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other part of the company\u2019s plan involves re-centering its space systems manufacturing at its Denver, Colo. building. This involves closing the company\u2019s Newton, Pa. facility in 2015. According to Hamel, the move will consolidate \u201cpeople, process, capability and knowhow,\u201d to make the company more effective. Some of the commercial satellite assembly and testing assets at Lockheed Martin\u2019s Sunnyvale, Calif. facility will also be moved to Colorado.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt a need to try to reduce structural costs in the company and over time we had multiple facilities across which different subsystems, components, final assembly and tests were done for commercial communications satellites as well as our government satellites,\u201d said Hamel. \u201cWe will be doing a consolidation in the space systems company \u2026 [and] by the middle of 2015, all of our commercial communication satellites, design, engineering, marketing, assembly and testing will all be centered here in Denver, Colo. We think that that will have great benefit in terms of increasing the synergy within the company as well as providing much better focus for our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like other United States companies that have been adversely affected by federal spending drawdowns, Lockheed Martin is also expanding its presence internationally. Roughly a year ago the company created a separate business entity called Lockheed Martin International to help build stronger relationships around the globe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be terribly surprising that the locations of some of these Lockheed Martin International companies are in Australia, Korea, Japan, UAE, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom \u2026 many of the commercial operators\u2019 headquarters are in those countries,\u201d said Hamel. \u201cFor example, Inmarsat<\/b> has its headquarters in London, and likewise we see a number of important operators in the Middle East in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Japan is a very close and historic customer for us as well. We are going to be leveraging those investments and those relationships across Lockheed Martin with a particular focus on expanding our cooperation as well as sales in the commercial space business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamel added that customer input is now a driving influence on Lockheed Martin\u2019s satellite designs. For example, the A2100 is now capable of supporting electric propulsion after discussions with customers who expressed interest. Another new feature is satellite re-programmability in order to allow operators to reconfigure satellites through software updates. Furthermore, the company is looking into new ways to up the amount of capacity a satellite can provide.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the core design is very similar to what you see in the electronics world,\u201d explained Arment. \u201cPlatforms don\u2019t necessarily change dramatically but the electronics inside are refreshed constantly. We certainly see that across the board in military platforms, and they are looking to ramp the capabilities of the A2100, but at the same time provide what is a proven system at dramatically lower cost \u2014 and likely risk \u2014 to the customer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lockheed Martin\u2019s extensive history of government projects allows the company to pool strengths from defense and civil space programs as well. Lockheed Martin is applying lessons from other fields to make its commercial business more competitive. Federal budgets are expected to remain constricted in the near future, which further inclines the company to seek out long-term potential in the commercial market.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no single event where we\u2019ll unveil the new A2100, like they do at auto shows,\u201d said Hamel. \u201cRather, we\u2019ll incorporate the refresh incrementally into our offerings as we continue through engineering, development, and the full-qualification of flight units \u2026 we think it\u2019s a very exciting time, and we\u2019re very much committed to reestablishing our position in the commercial marketplace by both providing our customers great capabilities, and also leveraging the developments of our government customers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[Via Satellite 04-17-2014] Engineering giant Lockheed Martin is making progress on its plans to reengage the commercial satellite market. At the core of this plan is the complete renovation of the company\u2019s flagship A2100 satellite bus. Lockheed Martin is reviewing every detail of the A2100 to modernize both the technology and the manufacturing process to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77837,"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-77836","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\/77836"}],"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=77836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}