Surprise. Time to Fire Stage 2?
So much news keeps coming indicating that the next phase for the satellite industry is here, and that phase is achieving scale. That was a central discussion at Novaspace’s recent World Satellite Business Week event.
As Stella Guillen of Isar Aerospace said in Constellations’ WSBW preview publication, “A decade ago, space was a budget line for governments and a dream for billionaires. Last year, it was a $626-billion economy. By 2034, it crosses $1 trillion. We are watching the same thing happen that happened to the internet: a sector so fundamental it stops being a sector and becomes essential infrastructure.”
Matt Desch, CEO of Iridium, echoed that point, “I never predicted that so much investment would flow into this industry, particularly into businesses that won’t pay off for years. In today’s funding environment, the original Iridium would have been a huge success.”
One of the main drivers is defense. Government budgets across the globe are growing. Space Intel Report recently quoted EU Defence & Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius proposing that space should account for 50% of total defense spending through 2034.
Madeline Durett’s article in the WSBW preview asked nine leading space executives to name one industry prediction they got wrong. The answers carved a wide swath ranging from Desch’s surprise about investment flow, to Thomas Sinn, CEO of Dcubed, “there is now so much commercial activity and potential for applications on the moon and around the Moon,” to Mark Boggett, CEO of Seraphim Space, who overestimated “the speed at which orbital infrastructure would scale.”
On a panel at WSBW, Mark Dankberg, CEO of Viasat cited Warren Buffett, that the market is a voting machine in the near term but a weighing machine in the long term, when returns must be achieved. “In the meantime, one of the main questions is surviving long enough for the weights to come in.”
On the same panel Karim Sabbagh, managing director of Space42, commented that, “Ultimately the onus is on us to figure out the vertical and horizontal integrations.… it is a learning curve.”
Hear. Hear.
And also hear, when asked, “What question will dominate 2027?” Charlotta Sund, CEO of SSC, replied, “How we can scale space infrastructure and services fast enough to meet growing commercial, defense and societal demands?” and Guillen answered with, “The question dominating 2027 will not be whether demand exists, it will be who can actually deploy.”
All of which will require increased focus on interoperability (a much-repeated word at WSBW) to achieve the growth and robust supply chains that can support the next phase of the industry’s expansion.