Military Satellite Market To Remain Strong Around Globe

 

New Programs in the Middle East

In the Middle East, one of the most interesting operators to emerge in recent years is Yahsat. The United Arab Emirates-based company has committed more than $1.6 billion to a dual satellite system to serve military and commercial customers. The country’s military is the anchor customer, and Yahsat will look to do other deals in this area. “It is not only about pure satellite capability but how you build your services and understanding military clients,” says Jassem Al Zaabi, Yahsat’s CEO. “This is definitely a culture we have been able to build through our anchor clients we have, which is the UAE military. We think a very big military client like the UAE military will open the door for us to sell our services to other governments and militaries in the area. This is going to be one area that we start soon. We are trying to make sure we have a very good value proposition and good services first — I don’t mean only capacity but the whole package. This is a very delicate segment. Customers have very clear requirements so you have to be able to deliver,” he says.

Vendors also See Opportunities

One of the main companies targeting the European military satellite communications market is Thales Alenia Space, which works with a number of European nations on their military satellite systems. Blaise Jaeger, executive vice president, telecoms, Thales Alenia Space, is confident the company will find business. “We foresee growth in this market, with requirements increasing. Because of current conflicts, everybody realizes the importance of exchanging information,” he says. “With intelligence, reconnaissance, etc., the volume of information is increasing and so are the required throughput and bandwidth. The market will grow not only in Europe but also from other governments around the world that need these capabilities.”

Jaeger believes going forward, there will be more sharing of costs of these next-generation systems, and this is an area where Thales Alenia Space is very proactive. “One solution we have developed, starting with the French government, is to share investments in the platform, satellites and launch costs. We started doing this in France with Syracuse, sharing the satellites between the Ministry of Defence and France Telecom,” he says. “Today, we want to export this business model to other countries based on sharing commercial and military payloads on the same satellite. This is also the model for Yahsat, which is a dual-use system, and it could be the model for the next generation of broadband satellites to be shared by the French Ministry of Defence and French space agency, CNES. Different countries could also share certain resources, like France and Italy. In other words, one olution is to deploy a dual-use system and share the investment.”

Jaeger expects Thales Alenia Space to increase profits and revenues in this area in 2009. “First, we have Yahsat, an ongoing program that will generate more revenue in 2009 than in 2008, but the main target for 2009 is the start of two important projects for the European defence market,” he says. “The first one is Sicral 2, offering secure SHF (super high frequency) capacity as well as some UHF capacity. It would complement both Syracuse 3A and 3B in France and Sicral 1 and Sicral 1B in Italy. We expect this project to kick off in 2009. We also expect the Athena-Fidus satellite project to start in 2009. With Ka-band and EHF payloads, this satellite will also complement the capacity offered by Syracuse and Sicral for broadband applications. Both these projects are joint endeavors by France and Italy. The combination of these two satellites will complement and replace existing Sicral and Syracuse capacity. As a Franco-Italian company, we are very keen on starting these projects for both governments.”

Bottom Line

It would seem that there will be little change in the military satellite communications arena in 2009, as the demand for capacity in regions such as the Middle East will remain strong and military operations continue elsewhere around the globe. A number of nations will continue with their next-generation military satellite systems, and while the new presidential administration in the United States may have some impact on military spending, this should still remain a vibrant satellite communications marketplace despite changing economic and theater circumstances.

Mark Holmes is Via Satellite’s Assistant Editor.

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