Strategically Smaller
But even with certain markets driving demand for complex payloads, smaller spacecraft are truly coming into their own. Orbital Sciences Corp. has dominated the market with its Starbus platform, but Europe's EADS Astrium, known for competing in the large platform market place, has entered a strategic partnership in 2005 with Antrix of India to make joint bids for smaller satellites. Through this partnership, Antrix will provide the platform and EADS Astrium will be responsible for the payload electronics. Orbital's early entry in the small satellite payload market helped the company capture 18 percent of the overall satellite manufacturing orders awarded in 2005, according to the company's own tally. Orbital Sciences's platform solidified new contracts both in Asia and Europe, tying with Lockheed Martin and Space Systems/Loral in the number of satellites ordered.
In fact, last year was even more significant for the manufacturer announced it reached a settlement with China Telecommunications Broadcast Satellite Corp. (Chinasat) regarding the Chinasat 8 satellite and launch. Beneficial to both parties, this settlement amicably resolves all outstanding differences between the company and Chinasat.
While Orbital's performance was strong in the overall market, the company dominated the small satellite niche, capturing 60 percent of orders in that class, says Ali Atia, president of Orbital Communications International. "While focusing on a small niche, we still captured a respectable percentage of orders," he says.
With the small satellite market picking up steam, Atia is not surprised that other manufacturers are making moves to play in the niche. "All manufacturers migrated away from the small market. Now, because they see business picking up, they are trying to get back in. We expect the [small satellite] market to grow modestly," he said.
According to Atia, opportunities that are driving demand include high-speed Internet access by Ka-band, digital satellite radio and high-definition (HD) TV, which takes three to four times the bandwidth of normal TV. "So once all the distribution moves to HD we will need three times the capacity and three times the number of transponders," he adds.
"We may be a niche player in the broadband market for people who do not have the initial funding for a large satellite or for those testing over a certain market. We have talked to a couple of potential customers. We had three Ka-band contracts before the industry collapse, but those never came to fruition," Atia says.
A Mixed Future
Even though small payloads gained momentum in 2005, the future demand for satellites will most likely encompass a wide spectrum of sizes and will be fueled by the market applications most in demand by the customers.
Mobile communications, HDTV and digital audio radio broadcast satellites most likely will be large because of their power and antenna requirements. For traditional service, satellites will remain small to medium. So whether big or small, the near-term platform demands will remain as diverse as the applications they will deliver.
Nick Mitsis is the editor of Via Satellite magazine. He also sits on the board of SSPI's Mid-Atlantic chapter.
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