Quilty’s takeaways from World Space Business Week
Every year at the perennial Paris pilgrimage, one or more trends emerge as the dominant theme of the show, and 2024 was no different. Quilty Space attended the weeklong conference, meeting with dozens of companies in satcom, remote sensing, and space hardware sectors. DTD was the dominant theme last year and Starlink’s entry into enterprise market was the talk of the show in 2022. What were our top themes from this year’s show?
Key Takeaways:
Starlink & Kuiper leave nowhere to hide. In the face of emerging LEO threats, incumbent GEO operators for years pointed to enterprise and mobility as safe havens. That's no longer the case. Starlink’s ability to vacuum up prized customers in 2024 – John Deere for IoT, Carnival Corp for cruise ships, and just a week ago United Airlines for 1,000 aircraft – sent shivers through the industry. Plus, now that Kuiper is on the verge of its massive launch campaign, the satellite broadband business increasingly looks like a battle of titans, with the traditional players caught in the middle. Conversations around differentiated offerings and diversification strategies were abundant.
DTD is still hot (on the down low). How do you top 2023’s declaration of a new $100B industry? While there weren’t any splashy new announcements at this year’s show, there was a heavy undercurrent of activity at the manufacturing level where vendors claimed multiple bid opportunities.
Propulsion is a growing headache. The loss of market access to Russian supplier Fakel, the emergence of a high-demand customer (SDA), and a slew of propulsion failures continues to put pressure on satellite manufacturers to find new, reliable sources of thrusters. Some companies are planning to vertically integrate propulsion, while others (like Safran) are standing up whole new factories to meet demand. Among components manufacturers are hard-pressed to obtain, propulsion is arguably one of their biggest pain points.
Software-defined satellite costs are on the rise. Once perceived as the GEO industry’s answer to the LEO onslaught, software-defined satellites have fallen years behind schedule and surged in price, with one manufacturer’s cost reportedly doubling its price in just 12 months. It's no secret that Airbus and Thales Alenia Space have been hurting as they absorb satcom-induced losses in their space businesses. That is creating opportunities for U.S. GEO manufacturers that all but disappeared from the market in the years following the covid pandemic. It also adds fuel to the fire of the big vs. small GEO debate.
Smallsat manufacturing hopefuls are proliferating. The industry itself is confused by the seemingly endless stream of new entrants creating factories for small satellite constellations. This year saw expanded factories for companies that already have customers, notably MDA Space for Telesat Lightspeed, Terran Orbital/Lockheed for the military’s PWSA constellation, and vertically integrated Amazon Kuiper. At the same time, startups Apex Space, Aerospacelab and Orbitworks (the Loft Orbital/Marlan Space UAE JV) are standing up new factories. Industry patrons are generally impressed by the caliber of new entrants, but year after year the number of factory announcements outpaces the number of new constellations.
Launcher competition is sorely wanted. Notwithstanding SpaceX’s remarkable 2-week turnaround after its first failure in years, the industry has a strong desire for multiple regular and reliable launch providers. Launch providers are acutely aware of this (and have been for years). The question now as new vehicles reach their respective launch pads is: can they execute? A successful first flight is one thing, but reaching a steady cadence is another animal.
SOURCE: https://wsbw.com/