If the space industry can evolve into more of a genuine market over the next few years, we’ll see some major improvement in the solutions that benefit Earth.
Market forces can lower prices, increase efficiency, improve customer service, and result in better performance at every level (you know the arguments!)
And I don’t think we need anything dramatically new to achieve this result (notwithstanding evolving demand).
It “simply” requires the optimization of all of the sub-processes involved in completing a space mission today – given the existing solutions on the market and current operating conditions.
So how would this work?
Well, let’s look at satellite launch for example. Pre-launch testing and qualification has simplified in recent years. In part because there are plenty of payloads, deployers, launch vehicles, and ground segment assets that are now proven and standardized, to some degree.
But there is still room for improvement. We could achieve shorter timelines, easier launch prep, streamlined paperwork, and lower associated costs for all of this – if only the incentives were strong enough.
If the waitlists for launches started to grow significantly, and we begin to really think of the period between the completion of a satellite’s qualification and its launch as real wasted time (and, therefore, money), the incentive to widen that bottleneck will increase.
These stories play out at all levels of the industry; lead times for certain satellite components, availability of particular testing facilities, regulatory approvals, finance, software development, and so on.
There’s a lot to work on.
And at satsearch, we’ve shown time and again that efficient procurement is a key part of this challenge.
There are ambitious mission teams around the world looking for solutions on the global market AND there are plenty of high-quality suppliers that offer those solutions.
But we noticed that there wasn’t an easy way for the former to identify, assess, and engage with the latter – in a rapid and consistent way.
So that’s just what we’ve built.
Our platform has now been relied upon by more than 400 space mission teams around the world, resulting in business opportunities worth more than $1.1 billion and counting.
We’re dedicated to helping teams accelerate their missions and get to space faster, by opening up the global supply chain to the engineers building real solutions for Earth.
And we understand the unique pressures those engineers are under.
Doing more with less
Building a space mission can seem like a constant challenge to do more with less.
When done well, the scope of any space-based service is potentially enormous – both in terms of the geographic coverage and the potential value (aka revenue) generation. But the size, complexity, and cost of the mission still needs to be as small as possible.
We’ve seen countless examples of deadlines shortening and SWaP-C budgets getting squeezed, sometimes during mission design, while end-user expectations continue to grow. Or the end-user application may need significantly increased data fidelity in each service generation – with impacts on edge computing options, satcoms, the ground segment and on and on.
Sustainability issues are also playing a bigger role. Missions today need to deal with more space traffic and debris threats than ever, as well as (perfectly justified) expectations of safe de-orbiting. The simplest satellites just don’t cut it anymore.
Meanwhile, space data and connectivity is becoming ever more critical for a whole plethora of applications on Earth; from navigation to wildfire monitoring. And the engineers toiling away to meet these needs, under growing pressures, are constantly battling for the right resources to get the job done properly.
But satsearch is on your side.
We can help you carry out trade studies, sourcing, and procurement faster and with less effort (saving time and energy) and find more, and more relevant, space hardware, software, services, and supplier options to meet your needs (saving money and achieving better results, much more easily).
We can help you do more with less.
And, in doing so, we can help address one the most important challenges engineers face – getting the best performance for the lowest cost.
Optimizing the cost-performance ratio
We have many conversations with space engineers about the cost-performance ratio. It’s a tricky metric in the space industry as technologies are so interdependent and development roadmaps can shift significantly in the process.
Even small changes, whether technical or programmatic, can have big impacts on the performance requirements (or expectations) of the finalized design. Each comes with design trade-offs and a change to integration, qualification, and even launch preparation protocols that needs to be assessed.
And the cost side of the ratio is also a fluctuating variable. We’ve seen prices vary by an order of magnitude or more for very similar systems, depending on geography, customer, end-user, and calibration/customization requirements, as well as after-sales support.
In practice there are probably 2 main elements to improving the cost-performance ratio; engineering and components.
Improving the engineering process is simple to understand but complicated to achieve. It includes every aspect of design, inventory management, manufacturing resources, team skills and organization, and so on. It’s a complex challenge, but one that space engineers are highly adept at meeting due to the necessity to use systems thinking in every mission or project.
On the other hand, simply having access to better, and more cost-efficient, components (or materials, subsystems, software packages etc. – basically, whatever you need to buy to get the job done) is more achievable than ever.
Global supply chain platforms and marketplaces, such as satsearch.com, can help you more efficiently and cost-effectively identify and source capabilities that can provide better performance and/or be lower costs.
The international space industry is striving to be more commercial right across the value chain, and growing competition is leading suppliers to improve how they attract and engage with potential customers – to the benefit of engineers everywhere. The challenge is how to access these benefits efficiently – finding the right people to work with takes time, effort, and deep, up-to-the-minute knowledge of the supply chain.
And that’s exactly what we can provide.
Get in touch with us today and let’s discuss how we can help improve your cost-performance ratio with the right components and suppliers that meet your needs.
Let’s build for Earth together!
