In September 2025, Quilty Space published a projection that Starlink would generate $15.9 billion in revenue and $11 billion in EBITDA for 2026. When SpaceX’s confidential IPO filing landed six months later, the industry’s pricing models, competitive analyses, and investor decks were already built on Quilty’s numbers. That is the kind of influence Chris Quilty has accumulated over two decades of covering the satellite industry.
Quilty is Co-CEO and President of Quilty Space, the research and advisory firm he built from what began as Quilty Analytics into one of the most frequently cited sources of satellite market intelligence in the industry. The firm’s coverage spans broadband constellations, defense procurement, optical communications, M&A activity, and launch economics. Its 2022 report on optical intersatellite links helped frame the industry’s understanding of OISL adoption as LEO constellations scaled. Its 2022 analysis of the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s impact on the space economy became a reference document as sanctions reshaped supply chains and launch manifests across the sector.
What distinguishes Quilty from other satellite analysts is how early he identifies structural shifts. In late 2021, his firm published research arguing that the Department of Defense’s pivot to LEO smallsats would become a significant growth driver for commercial satellite companies. That thesis has since become consensus, with the Space Development Agency’s proliferated architecture now anchoring billions in contracted demand. In August 2020, Quilty described Amazon’s Project Kuiper as a “seismic jolt” to the industry, years before Amazon’s reported $9 billion bid for Globalstar confirmed the scale of its ambitions.
Quilty is also a regular presence at the conferences SatNews covers. He moderated the opening session at SmallSat Europe 2025 in Amsterdam, steering discussion on the state of Europe’s small satellite industry. At the Silicon Valley Space Week MilSat Symposium in October 2025, he delivered a keynote on the dual-use dilemma, arguing that for many satellite companies the choice had become “dual use or die.” He has moderated sessions on topics ranging from future spaceport activity to optical data transfer standards, consistently positioning himself at the intersection of market analysis and industry dialogue.
His most recent public analysis, the Top 5 Takeaways from Satellite 2026, captured the shift in industry sentiment coming out of the Washington conference in late March. Quilty Space’s read on where the market is heading carries weight precisely because it is grounded in proprietary data and financial modeling rather than conference-circuit optimism.
At SmallSat Europe, Quilty joins a panel titled “The Market for Orbital Environmental Services and Active Debris Removal” alongside Astroscale US EVP Dr. Clare Martin, ThrustMe founder Dr. Ane Aanesland, Morpheus Space CEO and co-founder Daniel Bock, and Ion-X CCO Pierre-Jean Poirot. The session examines whether the market for orbital environmental services is ready to transition from government-funded demonstration to sustainable commercial business.
The panel puts Quilty in a role he has played before: the analyst asking whether the economics actually work. Debris removal and orbital servicing have attracted funding, regulatory attention, and no shortage of conference panels. What they have not yet produced is a self-sustaining commercial market. Quilty’s job on this panel, as in his research, is to test the assumptions with numbers.
