The satellite industry is moving from a niche market to the mainstream, industry leaders said at the LEO Digital Forum. Spire Global GM of Space Services Theresa Condor said within the next decade, every company that wants data from space will be able to obtain it via Space-as-a-Service models: “Every company is going to be a space company. Space-as-a-Service can remove all of that complexity.”
Microsoft Azure Global CTO William Chappell said Microsoft hopes to democratize space by making its global compute substrate available so companies don’t have to stand up their own infrastructure: “The role of democratization should be front and center for the community.” He warned of a “race to harness the disruption so that doesn’t turn into chaos.”
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Avanti CEO Kyle Whitehill said satellite is the best solution for Africa connectivity because MNOs struggle to deploy fiber due to low population density and challenging terrain: “Africa is the fastest growing continent for data today, but still with 50% to 60% of the population with no primary access to connectivity.” He called for industry collaboration: “The only way we’re going to be able to bridge the digital divide is by great companies collaborating with each other.”
Condor identified the core driver of growth: “The driver is really going to be the capability per kilogram that you can put into orbit. That has been increasing something like 10x every five years, and this has led to this explosion in constellations.” Chappell looked ahead: “Moving from bent pipes to actually doing processing in space is ridiculously hard, but it will happen.” VS
