Orbital Sciences Antares rocket. Image credit: Orbital

Tags: Orbital Sciences, Budget Cuts, Satellite Launch
Publication: News.Yahoo.com
Publication Date: 02/19/2013

Orbital Sciences’ Michael Hamel, head of business development, has expressed his concerns on how tight budgets will limit the American government’s plan toward smaller, less complex satellites. During an interview with Reuters, Hamel also blamed “old habits” that have plagued the country’s space programs as obstacles for its advancement.

Such old habits include commissioning several missions onto a single big satellite. According to Hamel, this scheme brings technological challenges, massive cost overruns and long launch delays.

For Orbital Sciences, the government could save money by building five simpler satellites for the price of one big U.S. military satellite. Instead, the government has been trying to cut costs by buying several satellites at a time through "block buys."

But Hamel believes that continuing to spend on big satellites means there will be less money to spend on newer, smaller technologies, which can additionally be launched on less expensive, smaller, commercial-style.

"It’s essential for the government to invest in new architectures and systems with new buying practices that really do leverage what we’re providing the commercial marketplace and to make dollars available for that," Hamel told Reuters.

Another benefit of a disaggregated approach to military and intelligence satellites is that replacement satellites could be cheaper and faster to launch, making U.S. government less vulnerable to cyber attacks.

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