The Satellite 2024 conference in Washington opened with its regular panel of satellite manufacturing executives. They admitted that demand for their geostationary craft had dropped.
Chris Johnson, CEO at Maxar Space, agreed that demand for geostationary satellites had certainly declined, but was far from dead. “It is evolving,” he told delegates and estimated that the historical demand for 20 to 25 commercial satellite orders per year had dropped to between 10 to 15.
His comments were echoed by Hervé Derrey, Chief Executive at Thales Alenia Space, who said, “There is an adjustment of that market. It is lower than it was five to seven years ago.”
Derrey said Thales Alenia still saw an overall demand for 10-15 satellites per year but explained that Thales was also evolving and changing its relationship with its traditional customers and embracing a more partnership type of approach.
Mike Greenley, CEO at MDA Space, who reminded delegates that his firm also enjoyed contracts in the non-Geo business (including orders from Telesat for its Lightspeed LEO fleet), said, “We absolutely believe in the sustainment of the Geo [division], saying it was important to have a strong and healthy GEO business.
Ryan Reid, president at Boeing’s satellite systems business, said GEO satellites would continue and, in particular, highlighted their role in multi-orbit solutions when used in combination with LEO constellations. He said, “GEO is the best way to get the economics of bandwidth.”
Alain Faure, EVP/Space Systems at Airbus Defence & Space, agreed but stressed that the industry, and Airbus in particular, was taking the necessary steps to supply more flexible solutions for customers. He said, “Over the past year, we invested a lot to bring a new solution to a market, a larger satellite in GEO, with a flexible payload. Now it’s time to produce and deliver, to propose incremental steps to the market [and] prepare for the future.”
Eutelsat OneWeb secures contracts from Intelsat
Eutelsat’s OneWeb division already has a bandwidth relationship with Intelsat and has now extended that agreement in a “multi-year” deal worth up to $500 million (€461.2 million) over the next seven years and with an initial commitment of $250 million.
The new agreement, announced at the Washington Satellite 2024 event, kicks off in mid-2024 and includes options for further extensions. Intelsat will also cooperate with Eutelsat on OneWeb’s ‘next-generation’ satellites.
Intelsat’s intention is to tap into OneWeb’s LEO constellation and integrate services ,such as connectivity for aircraft, government and mobility sectors.
“Innovation and technological advancement and the opportunity to incorporate Intelsat’s input into the build-out of the Next generation OneWeb constellation as one of its major practitioners will form key elements of the partnership. Such collaboration will help to further enhance the OneWeb system as it evolves to support complex, next-generation communication needs and offer robust and reliable connectivity solutions that are second to none,” stated Eutelsat.
“Over the past couple of years, Intelsat has leveraged our partnership with the Eutelsat Group to initiate our strategy of enabling multi-orbit solutions in the commercial aviation and government markets. Today’s announcement takes that partnership to a new level, enhancing our ability to offer new, true multi-orbit services and solutions across our portfolio of customers and business segments,” said Dave Wajsgras, CEO at Intelsat.
Eva Berneke, CEO at Eutelsat Group, said, “This expanded partnership with Intelsat represents a strong vote of confidence in the capabilities of the OneWeb satellite constellation, today and well into the future, as well as showcasing the necessity in today’s world for major satellite operators to be able to offer multi-orbit solutions to their customers. We are also delighted to further deepen our collaborative approach with Intelsat going forward, leveraging its unparalleled experience in the key verticals of Aviation and Government.”
