Via Satellite posed that question to five satellite operators’ Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) who are leading the R&D footprint for their organizations. The collective “wish list” exercise yielded some anticipated responses on the need for flexible payloads that can be reconfigured on the fly.
End Game — Driving Down Cost
To Thierry Guillemin, EVP and CTO of Intelsat, the breakthrough he’s been waiting for on the satellite side mirrors what the industry has long anticipated on the launch side with reusable launchers: “the ability to get the cost of the space segment to a much lower level and help satellite be a more effective partner for ground solutions,” he says. The answer, according to Guillemin, is digital payloads.
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More Flexible Payloads
CTOs were universal in their view that flexibility is a must-have if the satellite industry hopes to be competitive to the terrestrial market. “Flexible payloads that offer affordable, reconfigurable coverage will reduce the regulatory and market risk,” says Zoubair Kachri, CTO of Es’hailSat.
Guillemin says the industry has reached a turning point “where we could see fully configurable satellites in orbit become a reality in the next five years. They would be able to move power, bandwidth, connectivity, coverage as the market demands.”
Electronic Propulsion Systems
Eutelsat is most bullish on the merits of electric propulsion. According to Yohann Leroy, CTO of Eutelsat, electric propulsion will be key for future HTS systems — “giving us much more gigabits per second than what we have today by allowing us to get more capacity in-orbit than for a chemical propulsion satellite of the same weight.”
Better, More Affordable Ground Infrastructure
“Nothing will be real for customers and consumers unless we have the right ground terminal and technologies at the right price point,” says Guillemin. “Options for ground-based solutions are less well defined,” says Leroy. VS
Anne Wainscott-Sargent is a communications consultant and writer who brings nearly two decades of writing experience in the aerospace, satellite, telecommunications, defense, and government sectors.
