Satellite manufacturers emerging from pandemic-induced supply chain crises are turning to software-defined satellites to unlock new business models, CEOs said at SATELLITE 2022’s “Scaling Up Satellite Manufacturing Capabilities” panel.
Lisa Callahan of Lockheed Martin said the company helped struggling suppliers directly: “In some cases that was funding to keep them solvent, so we were advancing them several million dollars.” Dirk Wallinger of York Space Systems described two phases — an “everyone for themselves” phase, followed by a cooperative phase in which competitors shared materials. “Now we’re focused on trying to build that U.S. supply chain up.”
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Ryan Reid of Boeing said there is no standard industry definition of “software-defined satellite.” For Boeing, the threshold is whether a satellite “can be operated in the way that a software-defined network is operated” and seamlessly integrated rather than managed as a “separate bespoke hardware asset.”
Wallinger drew an analogy to the auto industry: “Service stations for cars were very much a thing when people kept their cars for 20 or 30 years. They don’t do that anymore. They lease, they return them, they get the next model. I see that as the future for our industry.”
Callahan highlighted AI-driven satellite monitoring: “We can look at how we can reprogram that application for customers in the future, and really understand when that satellite might fail, or what components are likely to fail.” VS
