The 2024 edition of World Space Business Week (WSBW) features high-quality panels with important speakers who share their expertise and experience to help chart the industry’s future course. During the third day of the event, several key players from the in-space services market discussed their plans and the challenges ahead.
The panel ‘Delivering Access to Space: Services and Mobility’ saw the participation of:
- Renato Panesi, CCO and Co-Founder of D-Orbit
- Jeanne Allarie, CCO at Exolaunch
- John Rood, CEO & President of Momentus Inc.
- Robert Carlisle, CEO & Co-Founder of Argo Space
- Jean-Luc Maria, CEO & Co-Founder of Exotrail
The representatives of these major companies found many common points on the future of the sector and the possible impact of new launch opportunities. However, the various private entities have different strategies and plans to secure significant portions of this growing market.
Advertisement
Establishing experience
Exolaunch is a leader in the deployment of small satellites thanks to successful products like EXOpod Nova and CarboNIX, which allow integration on various vehicles. In recent years, the company has built an important heritage with dozens of missions and over 400 satellites deployed in orbit. Jeanne Allarie shared: “This year was the biggest so far for the company, in terms of number of satellites deployed, new customers, and new deals secured within the industry. […] We mainly worked with SpaceX, but we also supported some Rocket Lab launches and the maiden flight of Ariane 6.”
She added: “We became the first and only company that deployed a commercial small satellites into GEO orbit on board a Falcon Heavy a year ago.”
D-Orbit is developing an advanced suite of in-orbit services based on the ION satellite carrier vehicle, supported by the D-Orbit Cloud Platform. The company was founded in Italy but quickly expanded globally, recently establishing a presence in the U.S. with its subsidiary, D-Orbit US.
Renato Panesi stated: “I’m happy to share that we almost completed the development of version 5 of the second generation of our ION OTV, which will debut next year, in June. It features a bigger capacity, better pointing accuracy, and more power for hosted payloads. The third generation will come a year later.”
He then added on the rapid evolution of the mission profiles: “Now after the deployment of the satellites, our ION starts a second life, operating third-party hosted payloads. The idea of the mission has now evolved into a real Satellite as a Service (SaaS) model. We do operate regularly and continuously those payloads for the end users to generate revenues out of them, over a 1 to 4-year timeframe. We have 12 IONs in orbit right now and most of them are continuously operating payloads. […] Not only hardware but also software services. The cloud computing market is growing.”
Advertisement
The future of the market
The in-orbit services sector is set to grow exponentially in the coming years. Several factors will impact the demand for last-mile services, particularly space debris mitigation and growing defense requirements.
Indeed, there has already been a huge increase in the number of satellites launched, especially in low Earth orbits. Over time, a large portion of these spacecraft will age, thus requiring de-orbit or lifetime extension services.
New government strict debris regulations will play a crucial role. As stated by John Rood, CEO & President of Momentus: “Our governments have started to implement restrictions that require deorbit after five years of useful life.” He then addressed the economic issues: “The problem is that so far there’s not a model where the removal of space debris generates high revenues. There are important regulatory matters that could be helpfully done and the development of the insurance market that will flow down to create more of a demand. Because now it’s unsustainable.”
Jeanne Allarie shared Exolaunch’s vision on the future market demands: “We see that small satellites are getting bigger and heavier. I think that SpaceX defines those new standards. We are adapting our technologies accordingly. We start developing all the hardware to make sure that our systems will be fully compatible with Falcon 9, to support the full range of small sats.” She added: “Now our focus is on reliable constant and affordable access to space.”
Liftoff of Transporter-11! pic.twitter.com/R7UoMknxRk
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 16, 2024
Nowadays, many players in the on-orbit services sector are emerging and growing. But will there be room for everyone?
As Jean-Luc Maria of Exotrail interestingly pointed out: “It’s a step-by-step approach. Our job collectively is to mature things and to demonstrate to the market that our solutions are really available and later reliable. We will need to master new technologies to do proximity maneuvers, docking and so on. And right now, almost nobody has the technologies reduced at small satellite level.”
On the other hand, Rood expressed some doubts about the growth rate of the sector and the need for mass production: “The first time I came here, three years ago, there was a lot more enthusiasm. Market prediction showed that newer customers would want those types of in-orbit services done on a larger scale. The predictions have not materialized to be as large as the market today. I think we will see a real growth in the early 2030s.”
Advertisement
The opportunities of the defense sector
With rapidly changing global geopolitical scenarios, the defense sector is set to grow significantly, even in the space domain. This could become a major opportunity for in-space service providers.
As Panesi explained: “We ca not ignore the fact that in the last 24 months, the defense market had a boost. National institutions look for solutions, and they typically want to own the assets they operate. This is in fact what we want to offer with D-Orbit US.”
“Last year we completed our contract with the Space Development Agency to implement some tailored modifications to our bus, to make it ideally suited for the US Space Force“ said Rood about the importance of the defense customers for Momentus’ busines. “We also begun to win DARPA contracts under the NOM4D program. The US Defense Department will increasingly do more in the classified domain.”
Advertisement
A range of new launch vehicles
A key uncertainty for the future business development of space service providers is undoubtedly the transition that the arrival of numerous new launch vehicles and providers could cause.
While some players appear highly focused on the opportunities that could arise from new heavy-lift rockets like Starship and New Glenn, others seem more cautious.
Jeanne Allarie said: “The focus for us [Exolaunch] is getting ready for the scale of Starship. We still have a few more years and it’s going to be a completely new scale with different volumes. We want to serve a large number of European, Asian, and Australian satellites flying on Starship in the future”
The Europen launchers sector might also become an important market.“At the same time, we would like to leverage the emerging European launch vehicles and support the upcoming missions with Ariane 6, Vega C, and new German small launchers,” said Allarie.
Renato Panesi stated: “The next 12 months will be critical. We will see new entrants in the launch provider segment and we count a lot in it. Starship will change the rules of the game again. Probably satellites will become bigger. We need to equip ourselves and adapt our business plans with bigger OTVs.”
Notably, Robert Carlisle‘s perspective is important in this regard, as he, along with his brothers Kirby and Ryan, founded Argo Space. All three are SpaceX veterans. The new company is relatively young but already has ambitious plans for logistic services around Earth and on the Moon.
“Big vehicles like Starship will come online, but also a new class of LEO-focused medium launchers. Those have a great synergy with space logistics services.” He pointed out: “If you want other people to be able to operate in the way SpaceX does with Starlink, you need rockets with high cadence, standardized launch, and payloads stack.”
We covered the rocket’s launch cadence topic in our previous article from the conference. For our complete coverage of the WSBW, please click here.
Advertisement
