Military Satellite Market To Remain Strong Around Globe

 

With a backdrop of a new U.S. presidential administration, the beginning of a shift in troop strength from Iraq to Afghanistan and a global economic recession, 2009 likely will be anything but dull in terms of military satellite communications. While the United States military will continue to drive
commercial satellite communications demand, the rest of the world will be spending money as well. Here, we take a look at what might happen outside of the United States as well as what impact events in the United States may have on other countries and their military satellite communications strategies.

“The major unclassified European military satellite efforts will come from France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom; however, continued consolidation and international cooperation among the various military satellite programs will keep production numbers far below those in the United States,” says John Edwards, senior aerospace and defense analyst, group leader — international military markets, Forecast International. “The major production efforts in Europe, Israel and Japan are expected to account for about eight military communications satellites, 16 military reconnaissance spacecraft (including electronic intelligence), and another three spacecraft in the global positioning category. I am forecasting that the world’s major satellite programs will produce around 95 dedicated military satellites within the next 10 years, meaning that satellite production in Europe, Israel and Japan should account for about 28 percent of this forecast,” Edwards says.

Andrea Maleter, technical director, Futron Corp, adds, “While the U.S. Department of Defense has been the highest profile and largest military user of satellite communications, other countries have extensive capabilities and are also expanding them. In Europe, beyond NATO, the U.K. Ministry of Defence’s Skynet/Paradigm program and SpainSat, there is an enhanced role emerging for the European Defense Agency as well as other individual national defense programs.

In Asia, the new Japanese space policy explicitly provides for the first time for a military space program, and Australia is considering similar programs.”
Prashant Butani, a satellite analyst at Northern Sky Research (NSR), believes it is unclear whether there will be an increase or decline in this overall market. “Developments and policies around the globe will dictate demand and spending levels, so the degree to how much the decline or increase in the market will be is not clear. For instance, there is a definite pullout in Iraq, which affects demand negatively, but there is also a move to increase the U.S. presence in Afghanistan,” he says. “It will be a matter of time to see the net effect of both these initiatives. If one were to consider developing economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and Mexico, there are civil programs that warrant satellite communications capacity, and there is a latent need for military
satellite communications capability, which by itself would have brought in considerable growth had it not been for the economic slowdown which puts most of these programs in question.”

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