“The world must adjust to living with Covid-19” is a phrase becoming increasingly commonplace in mainstream media reporting of the continuing pandemic. Whilst perhaps reflecting the ongoing practical realities of Sars-Cov-2 some 26 months after the World Health Organization declared the disease a global pandemic, it is a phrase of little comfort to the millions who have lost relatives and friends, nor to those continuing to suffer from “Long Covid”, nor to those in remote locations and in less developed nations still awaiting vaccination.
Obviously, this is not to dismiss the significance of the achievement of successfully rolling out vaccines to much of the world’s population such that, according to ‘Our World in Data’, as of 23 May 2022 some 60.4 percent of humanity has been fully vaccinated, with an additional booster so far given to 25.1 percent of the world.
It is against this background that over recent months many of us in the global satellite business community have returned to at least some of our international travels, attending meetings, meeting customers and suppliers, staffing exhibition booths, speaking at conferences, etc. After a break of two-and-a-quarter years I too have resumed boarding aircraft to rapidly traverse international borders, with my trips in May being to represent GVF at ‘Future Tech 22’ in Basra, Iraq, and at CABSAT in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
GVF’s Secretary General, David Meltzer, resumed his travels earlier than me, and over recent months has represented the association at a GVF Member event in North Africa and at a CITEL event in Latin America, as well as at domestic events within the United States from his base in Washington, DC. For Mr Meltzer’s next destination, Singapore, he will represent GVF at a number of events taking place in the city state over the period 31 May to 3 June.
For the Avia ‘Satellite Industry Forum’ at the Park Royal Collection Marina Bay on 31 May he will moderate ‘The Customers Talk’, a forum where the end users’ perspective on the satellite industry will be explored. The panellists will be Yossi Gal, VP Regional Sales, Gilat Satellite Networks; Bhaskar Majumdar, VP Business Development, Planetcast Media Services; David Gelerman, President & CEO, SpaceBridge; Chris Hill, CTO, Speedcast; and Sandeep Kumar, Head of Satellite Sales, Telstra Enterprise. Details of the program can be found following the link at https://gvf.org/event/satellite-industry-forum-2022/. GVF Members can use the VIP code GVF15 to register for this event with a 15 percent discount.
This year ‘Asia TechX Singapore’ (ATxSG), featuring various events located at The Ritz Carlton, Millenia Singapore and the Singapore EXPO, is partnering with Euroconsult’s ‘Asia Satellite Business Week’ (ASBW). On 1 June David Meltzer will lead a discussion on ‘Revolution in the Satellite Ground Segment’ with Phil Carrai, President Technology & Training Solutions, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions; Vaibhav Magow, VP International Division, Hughes Network Systems; Louis Dubin, SVP Product Management, Comtech; Sean Yarborough, VP Product Management, ST Engineering iDirect; David Gelerman, President & CEO, SpaceBridge; and Alvaro Sanchez, CEO, Integrasys. Full agenda details can be seen by following the link at https://gvf.org/event/asia-satellite-business-week/. GVF is ‘Knowledge Partner’ for ASBW and GVF Members receive 50 percent discount on registrations with code ASBW50.
Euroconsult is one of GVF’s Strategic Partners, and as well as this being reflected in the ‘Knowledge Partnership’ for ASBW, GVF and Euroconsult will collaborate for ‘World Satellite Business Week’ (WSBW) in Paris in September. Something GVF and WSBW share in 2022 is that both are celebrating their Silver (25th) Anniversary. In celebration of GVF’s first quarter century milestone, WSBW will feature the presentation ceremony for the GVF ‘Quarter Century of Excellence Award’. This Award will conferred upon the GVF Member which is deemed by a panel of independent industry experts to have made the most significant aggregate achievement and contribution to the satellite industry over the last 25 years. Nominations for the Award closed at 23:59 British Summer Time on 24 May and the winner will be announced, and the Award given, on 14 September at WSBW.
A thread linking my travel to CABSAT – to moderate panels at the embedded ‘SatExpo Summit’ – and Euroconsult’s latest market research forecast is space sustainability. This topic is now a major industry agenda item. It was addressed both in the SatExpo Summit session I chaired in Dubai, ‘Stakes and Solutions in Responsibly Managing Space’, and frequently throughout the rest of the Summit program. Additionally, and increasingly, we see publication of research papers analyzing not only the importance of maintaining the sustainability of our useful orbital space but also examining the role of orbital space in driving sustainability, security, and development on Earth. Indeed, this is the subject of a 2022 McKinsey & Company/World Economic Forum briefing paper.
The imperative of space sustainability is generating a new space market niche, and according to the First Edition of Euroconsult’s ‘Space Logistic Markets’ report, is driving “a nascent but growing set of on-orbit space services, to be articulated as a space logistic ecosystem from launch to satellites’ end of life…”. Six markets covered in the report highlight the development of end-to-end on-orbit mobility and associated services through Access to Space, Last Mile Logistics (LML), Life Extension, Active Debris Removal (ADR), On-orbit Assembly and Manufacturing (OOAM) and Space Situational Awareness (SSA). Euroconsult’s forecast is that this diverse set of on-orbit services will generate US$4.4 billion by 2031, with SSA estimated as the largest market with earnings of US$1.4 billion over the next ten years. “Watch this space!”
Of course, whilst international business travel has resumed it has not wholly returned to pre-pandemic levels, and the webinar continues as an important enabler of global industry dialogues. Given that a recent GVF webinar – ‘New Technologies, New Services’ which brought together GVF Members Astranis, Avealto, and Omnispace on 28 April – proved to be exceptionally popular in reaching a live and on-demand audience of over 1,700, the GVF Webinar Series (in partnership with ‘Connectivity Business News’) is planned to continue. As shown at https://gvf.org/webinars/, by the time you read these words the next webinar in the series will have taken place.
On 26 May ‘Innovation and the Ground Segment’ featured Darin Beakley, Owner & Vice President, Sat-Lite Technologies; Sean Yarborough, Vice President Product Management, ST Engineering iDirect; and Todd Brown, Director Business Development, AvL Technologies,with discussion moderated by Tim Farrar, President of TMF Associates. Compared to space segment, with its spectacle of launches, enormous GEOs, and the massive constellations of New Space LEOs, ground segment innovations have often been given only given cursory consideration. However, ground segment innovation is now of a nature and scale which is driving change in the former perceptions, and changes to ground segment are now rightfully observed as equally important as those of the space segment to achieving a more connected world. Whilst New Space has been extensively characterized, the idea of New Ground – a cohesive, comprehensive, all-encompassing approach to recognizing and evaluating the importance of advances across the entire ground segment ecosystem – is not yet so well established, albeit that the subject of innovations in antennas has significantly increased in topicality in recent years.
If you did not Zoom in to this event on 26 May, you have not missed out. The video recording is available on-demand at https://gvf.org/webinar/innovation-and-the-ground-segment/.
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Martin Jarrold is Vice-President of International Program Development of GVF. He can be reached at: martin.jarold@gvf.org
