ConstellR came away from Bremen Space Tech Expo brimming with a sense of the space sector’s continuing potential as pioneer; not only in terms of new tech, but also novel business models and climate innovation. The team reflects on some of the notable trends moving into focus.
- NewSpace is maturing. We’ve not had the opportunity to see many of our peers over the last two years, but it’s great to see such a high rate of growth regardless!
- The space sector is booming with old and new players alike; each creating and competing in new commercial markets. Agencies and institutions are supportive and everyone recognizes not only the trend but the necessity of fostering these new ventures. There is a corresponding need for more openness from the industry towards leveraging technologies and competences from other “terrestrial” fields.?
- In this newly forming commercial landscape, technology is ahead of business to a great extent: the challenge is now to turn technological solutions into applications that are sound from a business point of view and that can be monetized. The bigger challenge of how to make sustainability and SDGs an actionable economic driver - one with the backing of institutions and regulatory bodies - becomes ever more critical.
- Doing business off-screen is a real pleasure; taking some time for social interaction is even more important. There was a great atmosphere in Bremen and a lot of positive tension to push on. We’re proud to be part of this ecosystem.
How the sector is shaping up...
- Many companies are offering very similar products and it’s not always easy to identify the unique selling points. We would expect in the next 2-3 years to see more and more consolidation.
- Many companies already have space heritage and quite a few are only months away from acquiring this. Great to see and feel the associated excitement.
- We are seeing a trend from selling componentry to offering turn-key solutions. The service span becomes accordingly more encompassing and time-to-space rapidly decreases.
- Related: we see more and more business models “as a service”, covering the entire value chain. Some examples are “platform as a service” or “space / ground segment as a service”, rideshares etc.?
- The digitalization trend continues at full-speed - everything is in the process of “migration to the cloud”.?
- Downstream applications are taking up more and more ...ehem... space, as data is made more freely available, treated more and more as a commodity (with particular thanks to Copernicus etc.).
- Sustainability is an increasingly hot topic and everyone was talking about the Russian anti-satellite tests. There is more awareness that the space environment must be protected and in particular, that the debris challenge must be tackled.?
The game-changers impacting the future of space...
- The gap between CubeSats and SmallSats is closing, with more and more intermediate sizes being tested and available. This means increasing availability of options, tailored to the specific performance required.
- It’s interesting also to observe that the industry moved from big sats to cubesats and is now stabilizing on microsats that are able to leverage the miniaturization procedures (with limited space heritage) and equipment of cubesats with the added advantage of being able to onboard higher performance instruments and payloads.
- Novel ideas, such as field emission thrusters, which just a few years ago were purely ‘science-y’, have made the leap towards application. Now there are new ‘science-y’ things emerging such as small foldable optics which we hope will also soon become available.
- Elsewhere, exciting technologies such as AI and onboard processing to increase satellite autonomy from an operational and data processing point of view and edge computing in space are areas we see developing rapidly and with big potential.
The dynamic of NewSpace’s vs ‘Old Space’...
- Our feeling is that NewSpace is starting to move out of the shadow of ‘old space’ and even more, is now able to compete and do so in a serious manner. We observe differing approaches from the old space sector in response to, or to counter, this trend and see everything from denial to cooperation. This provides a very interesting dynamic.
- While the large players and incumbents are still dominant, the general feeling is that this dominance is clearly declining. Old space will have to adopt some of NewSpace’s approaches to survive long-term.
- On the other hand, it could be said that NewSpace is actually opening new markets that were not really present in the industry before and which are also relevant for the incumbents; for example connecting non-space or adjacent markets to space (see agritech, for example).?
- In its present, nascent state, NewSpace is still unfit to serve governments and institutions, but is likely to get there by decreasing its risk profile, putting more and more pressure on the established players.?
What does all this mean for ConstellR and peers?
- People are recognizing the increasing importance of space in the fight for a stable climate. We see more and more purpose-driven companies, including ConstellR, focused on tackling large societal issues. There is a lot of excitement and momentum driving this positive trend and it isn’t going to wane any time soon.
- NewSpace is becoming more organized, be it through forming syndicates such as YEESS (Young European Enterprise Space Syndicate) or other groups. Such mechanisms and consortia will have more lobbying weight in the pressure for governmental contracts by combining the individual capabilities of their members.
- Historically conservative, the industry is opening to other businesses/sectors by borrowing components, leveraging technologies and competences, influenced by the new commercial stimulus. This push means the ecosystem is also opening up new channels and opportunities not only in the product market but also in the job market and within investment/financial markets. This serves to increase the overall market size of space, but also drives the economy at large, through several spillover effects.
Photo Credit: Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/-p-KCm6xB9I?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink
