The days of the 200 MEUR satellites are over...

and the days of 50 MEUR satellite have probably come to an end, too, said Dr. Gerd Gruppe member of DLRs Executive board responsible for German Space Administration at the opening address of DLR's workshop on new finance options for the space industry. Organised by DLR's division responisble for strategy led by Mr. Paul Feddeck and under the watchful eyes of Prof. Pascale Ehrenfreund, new Chair of the DLR Executive Board this workshop held a number of interesting revelations for all participants.

Ever since the German Ministry of Economic Affairs (BMWi) published of Germany's space strategy in 2010 it has become clear that commerical application of space technology by German companies has been a step child in the past and that it is the will of the German Government to change the fact, to make better use of its nations space technology potential. This is especially important when Germany's European partners France, Great Britain and Italy do much better in this field. Looking for the reasons it can be found that due to our drive for perfection German Space Technology is often too sophisticated and too expensive for the international market, sometimes as another senior excecutive of DLR put it, the large budget made it way too convenient for German space industry to just rely on state funding in the past.

However with stagnating government budgets and funds being diverted to Ariane 6 development and potentially also to post 2024 ISS extension new days are comming for Germany's Space Industry. Yesterdays workshop was one of many efforts by DLR to guide and support Germany's space industry to find new sources of business.

After the eye opening introduction by Dr. Gruppe in which he explained that relying on public funds only can be disadvantageous for commercial space companies. Public money often comes with a backpack of (design) rules and regulations. Rules that can make space technology excessively expensive and actually lead to a lower commercial viability. German companies should look thus beyond their traditional state customers. The workshop in turn centred around giving an insight on different funding options to bridge the gap from state funded to commercial space industry. Representatives of different public (EiB & KFW) and private banks (Commerz Bank) illustrated their programs and Venture Capital Funds (Vertis & SpaceTec Partners) explained the hurdles and opportunities of their offers. One thing however became clear - for all speakers and hopefully the participating businesses, too - there is no business space without a solid business model. 

I believe that its time to remember that the value of a satellite is in its application. That the reality of the new space industry is that the biggest market is not building satellites but the down stream services and that everyone in the upstream business has to spend some time in thinking how to generate products that actually and measurably enhance the commercial viability of the down stream services or face obsolescense.