News from World Satellite Business Week | Big launch companies predict doom for upcoming smallsat launchers

View this email in your browser SpaceNews' show daily for Euroconsult's World Satellite Business Week in Paris, Sept. 11-15 September 13, 2017 SPACENEWS' DAILY COVERAGE BROUGHT TO YOU BY Big launch companies predict doom for upcoming smallsat launchers Tereza Pultarova — Leading launch service providers say emerging companies developing a generation of dedicated small-satellite launchers will struggle to compete in the marketplace and will ultimately lose out to the bigger players. Speaking at the World Satellite Business Week in Paris Sept. 12, top executives of the world's five leading launch service providers agreed that the future small-satellite launch market will favor ridesharing and customized services on larger launch vehicles rather than tailored launches by the newcomers. "At SpaceX, we started with a small launch vehicle," said SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, whose company has launched its Falcon 9 rocket 13 times since last September's on-pad fueling accident destroyed a Spacecom's Amos-6 satellite. "We really wanted to make a business of Falcon 1 … we just could not make it work." SEE FULL STORY Spiwak stepping down as head of Boeing Satellite Systems Brian Berger — Mark Spiwak is retiring as head of Boeing Satellite Systems International at the end of November. Spiwak, who took over Boeing's satellite division in mid-2014, is going out on a high note for Boeing. On Monday, satellite fleet operator announced that it had selected Boeing over incumbent Thales Alenia Space to build seven satellites for a new constellation called O3b mPower. The win was a big victory for Boeing in a year that so far has seen just four orders industry wide for geostationary communications satellites (One of those, for the Kacific-1/JCSAT-18 "condosat," went to Boeing in February). SEE FULL STORY ITU: mobile networks want some C- and Ka-band spectrum for 5G Caleb Henry — The mobile network operators that strove with limited success to obtain large chunks of C-band spectrum two years ago in Geneva will try again in 2019 to secure more spectrum for future 5G networks.  Higher frequencies, including some of the Ka-band spectrum favored by numerous high-throughput satellite projects today, have also caught the eyes of mobile operators for 5G, Francois Rancy, the International Telecommunication Union's Radiocommunication Bureau director, said at Euroconsult's World Satellite Business Week conference here Sept. 13. Those terrestrial companies, along with regulatory bodies and related organizations, are formalizing their positions on spectrum allocations ahead of the ITU's next World Radiocommunications Conference in November 2019, referred to as WRC-19. Held in Geneva, WRC conclaves are where decisions are made on who has rights to the finite but increasingly in-demand spectrum resources needed by the entire telecommunications industry.  SEE FULL STORY LeoSat Enterprises forges pact to transmit data for Pakistan's Supernet Ltd. Debra Werner — Supernet Ltd., the Pakistani corporate-data network service provider, announced plans Sept. 12 to establish a strategic partnership with LeoSat Enterprises, a Washington-based startup planning to launch a constellation of 78 to 108 communications satellites into low Earth orbit to offer secure, high-speed connections for businesses and government agencies. LeoSat plans to provide Supernet with more than three gigabits of capacity on the global communications network it is developing, which is comprised of satellites built by Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy based on the firm's EliteBus flown by Iridium Communications on its Iridium Next constellation and O3B Networks first-generation constellation. LeoSat raised $11.5 million in a seed investment round that included an undisclosed amount from Japanese satellite operator Sky Perfect JSAT. LeoSat plans to raise $100 million in a Series A round, which JSAT will anchor with "a significant stake," LeoSat chief executive Mark Rigolle told SpaceNews. SEE FULL STORY Fully automated satellite-assembly lines? Not quite yet Caleb Henry — While robots began assisting and replacing assembly line workers in automobile and airplane factories years ago, humans still reign supreme in satellite manufacturing. But that's slowly starting to change. In contrast to the millions of cars and thousands of airplanes produced annually, satellites — and geostationary telecommunications satellites in particular —  are produced in much lower numbers. In a good year, the world's satellite manufacturers might book a combined commercial 25 orders. That low volume limits the efficiency gained from industrial robots, at least on the ground. "In terms of today, the uses for us are somewhat minimal," said Tom Wilson, vice president of Orbital ATK's Space Systems Group. SEE FULL STORY Follow SpaceNews Advertise with Us SN FIRST UP Satcom is sent out every Wednesday by SpaceNews Staff Writer Caleb Henry and SpaceNews Editor-in-Chief Brian Berger. Copyright © 2017 SPACENEWS, All rights reserved.