Author Topic: Space Launch Market Elasticity  (Read 24132 times)

Offline AncientU

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #60 on: 07/25/2016 05:09 pm »
New article indicates substantial growth even before constellations are launched:
Quote
Companies flood Earth's orbit with satellites
Quote
In the past five years, the number of operational satellites has jumped 40 percent, and nearly 1,400 now orbit the Earth.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=11680748
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Offline high road

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #61 on: 07/27/2016 12:10 pm »
I can't open the article from here, but does it account for how much of that growth is due to satellites becoming spectacularly smaller and cheaper to build? That means less launches can take up more satellites. On the other hand, they need to be replaced much more often.

In the 'economic development of LEO' thread, the study shows that bringing costs down isn't the only thing that would increase demand for launches: there's also shorter lead times, less red tape to get stuff to the ISS and/or alternative cubesat dispenser mechanisms to avoid having to go to the ISS in the first place. This does not say anything about elasticity in the strictly economical sense of the word, but there's definitely a lot of growth potential to the launch market, which is the gist of this thread. And it's in the 'short term', as it doesn't require new fancy infrastructure like orbital fuel stations, tugs, hotels, commercial research stations, assembly lines, exotic material production or what have you.

For now, the only limit seems to be how fast launches can be sent uphill, because the current rate has far too much lead time. I'll be watching intently how that'll evolve over the next few years.

Ideally, not lowering the launch prices but relying on shorter lead times and deregulation to increase demand, would put a lot of money in those organisations most likely to invest in that previously mentioned longer term commercial infrastructure. Only if they think it would increase their demand further, naturally.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #62 on: 07/27/2016 12:46 pm »
Satellites are also becoming larger and launch vehicles more capable.

There's growth at all levels of space launch.
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Offline tdperk

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #63 on: 07/27/2016 02:55 pm »
And fiber has taken over for such needs

Not even slightly real.  I have coax to my house.  In Northern Virginia.  That's copper.  I just was in range of the coax in the last year.  Before it was twisted pair.

A constellation of satellites fixes the last mile problem everywhere, not just in the non-fibered parts of the US.

The fact such a large market exists if costs are low enough suggests elasticity.
« Last Edit: 07/27/2016 03:19 pm by tdperk »

Offline JamesH65

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #64 on: 07/27/2016 03:35 pm »
And fiber has taken over for such needs

Not even slightly real.  I have coax to my house.  In Northern Virginia.  That's copper.  I just was in range of the coax in the last year.  Before it was twisted pair.

A constellation of satellites fixes the last mile problem everywhere, not just in the non-fibered parts of the US.

The fact such a large market exists if costs are low enough suggests elasticity.

Good point. A huge proportion of the UK is still copper, although you can get fibre to the cabinet, with copper for the last few meters. Although I would expect satellite systems such as this to be more used in areas with little or no current broadband supply - rural third world areas come to mind. You only have to look at Amazon/Facebook drones, or Google's Bloons to see evidence of that.

Offline biosehnsucht

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #65 on: 07/28/2016 02:17 am »
Rural America also has near-zero broadband penetration.

Offline tdperk

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #66 on: 07/28/2016 10:52 am »
Rural America also has near-zero broadband penetration.

And they will be as glad to pay for what these constellations offer as rural Africa will, and they will be able to pay far more and be glad of it.

They will.

Four houses over from me, the cows go at it.

If the local volunteer fire dept. 911 center had not gotten a fiber to it, I would still have no broadband.  I would be glad to pay $200/mo for integrated broadband services, phone/internet/TV.  It lets me work from home instead of driving in towards DC, a commute that is frequently 1.5hrs one way.

I can't say the anecdote is evidence of elasticity.  But I do assert demand is there and can generate a LOT of revenue.

More than enough to support elasticity.
« Last Edit: 07/28/2016 10:57 am by tdperk »

Offline AncientU

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #67 on: 07/28/2016 03:17 pm »
Iridium experience record subscription growth on the machine to machine (M2M) market.
New constellation to begin launching in September.

Quote
Iridium Announces Second-Quarter 2016 Results; Reports Record Net Subscriber Additions
Quote
The Company ended the quarter with 823,000 total billable subscribers, which compares to 766,000 for the year-ago period and is up from 788,000 for the quarter ended March 31, 2016.  Total billable subscribers grew 7% year-over-year, driven by growth in government customers and machine-to-machine (“M2M”).

“We delivered a best ever performance in subscriber growth driven by our M2M and government businesses, which illustrates the unique appeal of our services and positions us well for long-term growth,” said Matt Desch, CEO, Iridium.

Commenting on Iridium NEXT, Desch said, “We look forward to commencing the launch campaign for Iridium NEXT.  This major upgrade to our global constellation will build upon our leading position in satellite communications by adding high-speed broadband through Iridium CertusSM as well as important new hosted payload services, and be a platform for continued growth and innovation well into the future.”

http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/07/28/859656/0/en/Iridium-Announces-Second-Quarter-2016-Results-Reports-Record-Net-Subscriber-Additions.html
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #68 on: 08/10/2016 12:32 pm »
Shotwell looks forward toward growth in small sat market.

Next decade:
$16.7B manufacturing,
$5.3B launches, and
$11B+ operating revenue (I assume)


All props for the notes below go to the original poster (AstroCatCommander) who posted this on reddit. Reposting:

----------------

Conference Keynote
https://smallsat.org/technical-program/keynote

Ms. Gwynne Shotwell - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwynneshotwell
President, COO, SpaceX

Expect next decade to be > 3600 small satellites (<500kg)
Expecting this year to be > $2.5B in financing for small satellite projects
Next decade, ~$22B (16.7B manufacturing, 5.3B launches, 11B+ expected as business cases are proven)
Working closely with Spaceflight for upcoming rideshares

"If we shared everything [we are working on] people would think we are insane!"
-- SpaceX friend of mlindner

Online oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #69 on: 08/10/2016 02:26 pm »
Shotwell looks forward toward growth in small sat market.

Next decade:
$16.7B manufacturing,
$5.3B launches, and
$11B+ operating revenue (I assume)


All props for the notes below go to the original poster (AstroCatCommander) who posted this on reddit. Reposting:

----------------

Conference Keynote
https://smallsat.org/technical-program/keynote

Ms. Gwynne Shotwell - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwynneshotwell
President, COO, SpaceX

Expect next decade to be > 3600 small satellites (<500kg)
Expecting this year to be > $2.5B in financing for small satellite projects
Next decade, ~$22B (16.7B manufacturing, 5.3B launches, 11B+ expected as business cases are proven)
Working closely with Spaceflight for upcoming rideshares

To give a perspective on what $5.3B in launches over the next decade of smallsats means in terms of number of F9 flights per year (at F9 + SHERPA price at $75M) is 7 F9 flights per year. If F9 launches everything. So there is a ramp up in launch demand by the smallsat industry. If SpaceX wins 60% of the launch contracts then that is a steady 4 F9 flights per year for a decade. For now it looks to be about half that over the next few years of 2 growing toward 4 by 2020. With a possibility of growing to 7-8 F9 equivalent flights by 2030.

The predictions are that smallsats are the elasticity of the launch market through the next decade. Add in large constellations to the growing number of one time sats and the launch market could have a net increase even when considering US government slowdown in sat launches half as many in 2020 as now (15-2016 vs 8-2020). The market is growing mainly due to lower costs both in the sat manufacture and in launch costs (by a factor 4 to 10).

Offline AncientU

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #70 on: 08/10/2016 04:36 pm »
I'm interpreting next decade to be the next ten years (nominally 2017-2027) instead of the 2020s decade.
Doesn't change much of your analysis, just moves things closer by 3 years.
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Offline deruch

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #71 on: 08/10/2016 06:10 pm »
Shotwell looks forward toward growth in small sat market.

Next decade:
$16.7B manufacturing,
$5.3B launches, and
$11B+ operating revenue (I assume)


All props for the notes below go to the original poster (AstroCatCommander) who posted this on reddit. Reposting:

----------------

Conference Keynote
https://smallsat.org/technical-program/keynote

Ms. Gwynne Shotwell - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwynneshotwell
President, COO, SpaceX

Expect next decade to be > 3600 small satellites (<500kg)
Expecting this year to be > $2.5B in financing for small satellite projects
Next decade, ~$22B (16.7B manufacturing, 5.3B launches, 11B+ expected as business cases are proven)
Working closely with Spaceflight for upcoming rideshares

Here's a link to a picture with the actual slide: https://imgur.com/gallery/15HpS

The 11B+ was additional venture capital (VC) investment as business cases are proven out and attract more money.
Shouldn't reality posts be in "Advanced concepts"?  --Nomadd

Offline bstrong

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #72 on: 08/10/2016 09:12 pm »
Attached is a paper by astrophysicist Martin Elvis that showed up in my twitter feed today (via NASA Watch) discussing how new trends in commercial space can enable more flagship space missions.

One of the more interesting parts was a reference to a Boeing study that backs up the oft-repeated claim that increased mass budgets as a result of reduced launch costs should substantially reduce the cost of spacecraft:

Quote
A Boeing study, cited in [8], indicates that a 50% growth in spacecraft mass could lead to a factor 3 reduction in spacecraft cost. If over-capable spacecraft are acceptable then they can be “off-the-rack”, like cubesats, rather than bespoke, and can reap the cost advantages of batch production.

The whole thing is worth a read. It paints a nice picture of how many current trends could come together (and reinforce one another) in a way that leads to a lot more launches.



« Last Edit: 08/10/2016 09:15 pm by bstrong »

Offline mvpel

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Re: Space Launch Market Elasticity
« Reply #73 on: 08/11/2016 09:39 pm »
I think this is an important point to examine.  Most satellites were designed around the notion that launches were expensive and infrequent,
Launches are infrequent and expensive. With no down mass you can't build, launch, study the results and tweak it a bit, then re launch. Every payload is from scratch and can't be tweaked.

With a Bigelow BA330 or Olympus airlock you would certainly be able to build, launch, study the results, tweak it a bit, and then re-launch, and then bring the whole thing back down with you when you're done. That kind of capability opens up whole new territories of launch services demand.
"Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they're much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. A language that makes it hard to write elegant code makes it hard to write good code." - Eric S. Raymond

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