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Representation of the Boeing satellite that ViaSat-2 will be based on.
Image credit: Boeing
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[Satellite TODAY 05-17-13] ViaSat announced May 16 that Boeing will build ViaSat-2, a landmark deal for ViaSat that has been eagerly anticipated after years of delay. Company officials, however, say it will be worth the wait.
On the final day of SATELLITE 2013 in Washington, D.C. last March, Mark Dankberg, ViaSat’s CEO hinted that the company wanted to order ViaSat-2 soon, but company economics proved to be challenging. And according to Chris Quilty, senior vice president at Raymond James, Boeing was actually a “surprise” winner of the deal.
“With Space Systems/Loral eliminated from the competition due to an ongoing patent litigation dispute, the competition to build ViaSat-2 essentially boiled down to a two-horse race between Lockheed and Boeing, with Lockheed the presumptive favorite. Boeing, however, emerged as the surprise winner, due most likely to a combination of price, technology, and a willingness to engage in aftermarket partnering activities,” Quilty said in a research note.
With Hughes and ViaSat both launching new satellites, what impact will this have on the overall industry?
Jay Gullish, director of space & telecommunications at Futron Corporation said he believes this is good news for the satellite industry.
“I think what we are seeing is a really important migration,” he said. “Satellites are going to drive some of the competitive balance in the telecommunications community.”
Meanwhile, Quilty speculated on what technology might be used on ViaSat-2.
“Although management would not discuss the specific technologies used on ViaSat-2, we suspect the company may be using ground-based beam forming (GBBF) technology to achieve dynamic capacity reallocation,” he said.
In 2011, Boeing and ViaSat joined forces to provide a GBBF-based solution for MEXSAT. Ironically, ViaSat’s primary competitor, Hughes, is not using GBBF technology for their Jupiter 2 satellite despite being the industry leader in this technology.
In terms of the costs of the project, Quilty added, “ViaSat-2 is expected to cost 40 percent more than ViaSat-1 ($246 million), with the entire project cost (including launch, insurance, ground network, CPE development, etc.) at 25 percent more than the approximate $500 million spent on ViaSat-1.
Regardless, the actual cost-per-bit on ViaSat-2 is expected to be half that of ViaSat-1 due to higher absolute capacity and improved bandwidth flexibility.
The deal is also a major win for Boeing. The new satellite’s design will be based on Boeing’s 702HP satellite bus.
“The Boeing 702HP is our most powerful satellite platform,” said Craig Cooning, chief executive officer of Boeing Satellite Systems International and vice president and general manager of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems.
"We and Boeing believe it to be unlike anything else in the satellite industry," said Mark Dankberg ViaSat’s chairman and CEO during a conference call May 16.
ViaSat-2 is scheduled for deployment in mid-2016, and is expected to achieve an unparalleled mix of capacity and coverage.
Cooning says ViaSat-2 will result in what the company expects to be the world’s highest-capacity satellite, and will prove to be a major contributor to the expansion of ViaSat’s complete portfolio of broadband services.
“We are committed to delivering this satellite on-schedule and with the highest level of mission assurance,” he added.
ViaSat-2 is anticipated to approximately double the bandwidth economics of ViaSat-1 while simultaneously increasing its coverage footprint by seven-fold.
"Our contract with Boeing is a big step in creating and capturing more opportunities, with a substantial amount of competitive differentiation, because of the compelling functional and performance benefits of the new generation of satellites. Our strategic agreement with Boeing gives us more comfort that we’ll capture more of the economic benefits of the advance in space technology," Dankberg said.
ViaSat currently has 500,000 subscribers, has added an additional 125,000 net new subscribers, and is optimistic that trend will continue, according to Dankberg.
"We have a very promising position in the market. The adoption rates are very encouraging," he said.
Moving forward, Dankberg said partnering with Boeing opens the doors to a number of practical applications, which will range from commercial aviation – including service on JetBlue flights – to U.S. government aircraft traveling to Europe or Latin America and critical Homeland Security missions.
End-users are taking notice.
"It prompts us to have the fastest in-flight connectivity in the sky," said Allison Steinberg Spokeswoman for Jet Blue Airways during an exclusive interview with SatelliteTODAY.com.
Jet Blue has partnered with Live TV and ViaSat and launched the Ka-band satellite last October.
"It is the latest generation, with capacity equal to 100 last-generation Ku-band satellites. It’s smarter, newer, cheaper and better than anything on the market today for commercial aviation. We plan to make JetBlue the very first commercial airline to offer this product on board, at altitude," a Jet Blue blog states.
Follow Steve Schuster on Twitter @stevenschuster.
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