Panelists at the CTO roundtable breakfast at SATELLITE 2016. Photo: Vince Lim for Via Satellite

[Via Satellite 03-07-2016] To keep pace with end user demand, and to not cede territory to terrestrial communications companies, satellite industry Chief Technology Officers (CTO) are prioritizing improvements in user terminal technology and lower-cost satellites. Speaking at the “CTO Roundtable Breakfast: Expanding Stakes in an Expanding Network of Technologies,” representatives from different companies outlined priorities principally in these two fields.

While noting that the pace of development in satellite technology is quickening overall, Thierry Guillemin, EVP and CTO at Intelsat, said the burden now falls more heavily on the shoulders of ground segment developers.

“I think 10 years ago, most of the progress that was being made on throughput on satellite applications was coming from the ground. Interestingly I believe that over the last few years, the tide has turned and satellite has taken the lead again. We are now bringing satellite capacity and satellite features that are so powerful that the ground technology now needs to catch up in order to be really able to leverage these capabilities,” he said.

Though a requisite technology for the entire industry, terminals are arguably the biggest concern for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) communications systems like that of OneWeb, which is an Intelsat partner. Adding to the momentum behind LEO, Intelsat and OneWeb announced a multi-year, multi-satellite partnership with Gogo to provide capacity with Intelsat EpicNG and OneWeb spacecraft.

Bryan Holz, CTO of OneWeb and CEO of OneWeb Satellites, said that the reason OneWeb committed to building a constellation of hundreds of satellites was specifically because of the impact it would have on the ground segment technology.

“[We are] optimizing that architecture primarily around minimizing the terminal costs,” he explained. “We have so many satellites because we are trying to get the elevation and look angles that the antennas need to have to see the satellites. What that allows us to do is implement technologies to lower the costs of the terminals, primarily from an antenna perspective.”

Holz described the OneWeb constellation, which is to consist of 648 satellites, as essentially a space-based cellular network. The company is designing its satellite system this way, according to Holz, because most people communicate through mobile devices. OneWeb is using LTE in its user terminals, he said, which combined with global satellite coverage, positions the company to fulfill its vision. Holz said key technology in the terminals is largely a derivative of what Qualcomm is using for cellular services. OneWeb is modifying Qualcomm chips to form the base of the company’s LTE interface. New Electronically Steered Antennas (ESAs) and efficiencies with Solid State Power Amplifiers (SSPAs) are benefiting the company as well, he said.

Beyond better terminals, less expensive and more rapidly produced satellites still remain the long sought after prize of many CTOs. Antonio Abad, CTO at Hispasat, said that, based on research the operator conducted, classic C- and Ku-band satellites have experienced a reduction in cost of one order of magnitude in cost per Mbps over the past 25 years. Advances in solar arrays, lithium-ion batters, and electric propulsion, along with new modulation techniques have all contributed to this decline, he said. Add in Ka-band High Throughput Satellites (HTS), and the cost drops another order of magnitude. However, in the grand scheme of things, Abad said this is simply not enough.

“We made the analysis of what would happen to the evolution of the satellite capacity costs if the Moore’s law would have applied in the last 25 years from 1990 to today. We found, surprisingly, that the price of the capacity would be two additional orders of magnitude different than it is today. The main message that we are getting from that is: there is room for improvement in cost reduction in the satellite industry,” he said.

Furthermore, according to Hispasat research, the launch sector has evolved even more slowly.

“What we have found in the last 25 years is that the cost per kilo to get to orbit has been reduced by 50 percent. From 1990 the cost per kilo to [Geostationary Transfer Orbit] GTO was double the cost of what we have today with the Falcon 9s, with everything. And this is something we should be thinking about, because unfortunately the launchers that we are using today, they are not that much different, I wouldn’t say from the 1990s, I would say from World War II,” he said.

Abad pointed to reusability as the only idea Hispasat sees being pursued to truly reduce launch costs. Since the last SATELLITE show, two companies — SpaceX and Blue Origin — landed first stage boosters, giving real hope to the idea that reusable rockets can in fact lower costs. Abad cautioned still that the true viability of reusability remains unclear.

“We still have yet to see what is going on with reusability. Don’t forget something: reusability is not new. Reusability was invented in 1980 with the shuttle, and we saw what happened with the shuttle,” he said.

On the spacecraft side, Abad said Hispasat is introducing experimental photonics on the operator’s next satellites, the Amazonas 5 and Hispasat 30 West 6 to demonstrate the technology as one way to lower costs with spacecraft production.

Guy Perez, CTO and head of the telecom satellite directorate at OHB System AG, said the company is working on a small geostationary platform to lower costs, particularly with launch. He said the small GEO platform has the ability to launch not only with the Falcon 9, Ariane 5 and Proton, but is also being designed for compatibility with rockets that have a lower diameter payload fairing such as Russia’s new Angara A3 and the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO’s) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Perez mentioned electric propulsion as a priority as well.

“Another important goal is reduction of electrical propulsion transfer time. We have ion/hall-effect thrusters, but with an efficiency that has to be improved. We would like to have that in the future, and we believe that’s going to be a strong trend — more flexible power settings to allow for more flexible missions,” he said.