Erik Kulu

Large satellite constellations are becoming reality. Starlink has launched over 1600 spacecraft in 2 years since the launch of the first batch, Planet has launched over 450, OneWeb more than 200, and counting. Every month new constellation projects are announced, some for novel applications. First part of the paper focuses on the industry survey of 251 commercial satellite constellations. Statistical overview of applications, form factors, statuses, manufacturers, founding years is presented including early stage and cancelled projects. Large number of commercial entities have launched at least one demonstrator satellite, but operational constellations have been much slower to follow. One reason could be that funding is commonly raised in stages and the sustainability of most business models remains to be proven. Second half of the paper examines constellations by selected applications and discusses trends in applications, satellite masses, orbits and manufacturers over the past 5 years. Earliest applications challenged by NewSpace were AIS, Earth Observation, Internet of Things (IoT) and Broadband Internet. Recent years have seen diversification into majority of applications that have been planned or performed by governmental or military satellites, and beyond.

New in-space economy fields are emerging. The nascent space industries include human spaceflight, satellite servicing, orbital transfer vehicles, commercial space stations, in-space manufacturing, commercial landers and many others. In-space economy includes cislunar economy and Moon and Mars economies. Factories in Space (www.factoriesinspace.com) is the largest online database of commercial entities in the emerging in-space economy, space resources and microgravity manufacturing fields. The directory was started in 2018 and is growing quickly with 400 entries at this time. First part of the paper will define what new in-space economy is and establish classification for the companies. Literature review will be performed and glossary will be created to define the relatively new terms in a single source. Until the new industry categories are defined and accepted, activities will be named by varying methods, which makes it challenging to determine competitors and estimate market sizes. The count of high-level categories has been limited to the order of 10 for practical purposes. Second part of the paper will present statistical overview of which companies are or aim to be active in the new in-space economy fields. While most of the commercial lander, space resources, habitat and space utilities (energy, oxygen, water, communications) enterprises are focusing on LEO and Moon, many of them will likely add Mars and deep space to their activities once launch opportunities and markets arise. Within the classifications, comparison will be made between capabilities, development status, geographical distribution and funding where available. Goal is to leave a snapshot from 2021 to be able to start discovering trends and next space market booms over the coming decade.

Small launcher field is continuing to bloom, but some scepticism has begun. Rocket Lab has performed very well since achieving orbit in early 2018 with over 21 launches. With Astra, Virgin Orbit, Galactic Energy and Firefly having made their first orbital flight attempts, new actors have also become operational. NewSpace Index has tracked small launch vehicles (<1500 kg to SSO) since 2016 and at 180 entries. First half of the paper presents the statistical overview of 180 surveyed small launchers. 5% are retired, 9% are operational, 56% are in development, and 30% are concept, dormant or cancelled. There was a rapid increase of new small launchers starting from 2014. None of the very small single CubeSat launchers (<50 kg) are operational yet. None of the launchers offer dedicated mission cost for <$2 million. Costs per kilogram are generally higher than the cheapest rideshare missions. Land-based launches are the most common, but 2 air launchers are operational too. Development times can be as low as 2-3 years, but some have taken more than 10 years. Development delays of 1-2 years are common, but can be much longer. Far away from achieving the planned high cadences for future launches, up to daily launches. About 30 launcher organizations have announced funding of more than $10 million, meaning most of the small launchers do not have the funding at the moment to finish development. Select are developing hybrid and methane rocket engines. Re-usability tends to be rare for small launchers with about 13% in development and 7% planned. Space launch market revenues are predicted to increase rapidly, but assume most constellations being deployed in full, which is unlikely. On-demand flexibility and specific orbits are the main benefits of dedicated launchers, because it is cheaper to deploy constellations in batches on larger rockets. Small launchers are competing with rideshare and piggyback launches, space tugs, resupply spacecraft and on-board propulsion modules. Revenue predictions from SPACs are very large and do not account for the diverse competition. Multiple startups have over $1 billion valuations without having performed successful launches. Many small launch organizations have started developing larger rockets, satellites, space tugs and more. With Relativity raising over $1 billion, Astra and Rocket Lab went public and Virgin Orbit planning to follow, the certainty is that next years in the small launcher industry will be compelling.