Commercial Satellite and Launch Vehicle Buying Trends

Abstract

The commercial satellite and launch vehicle industries continue to grow. The key factors influencing growth are the increased demand for satellite services and the satellite operator's capability to provide those services. This paper addresses the satellite operators' buying trends and how they have influenced the satellite manufacturing and launch vehicle industry. These customers evaluate procurements with a varying set of motivating factors and evaluation criteria. Industry buying trends are dependent on several different factors each of which will affect individual customer's buying choices and hence buying trends in these industries. This paper will address buying trends over the last 14 years. It will discuss decisions by key commercial satellite and launch customers and will summarize some of the obvious trends, which have helped shape these industries. It will examine qualitative and quantitative buying trends. We will show quantitative trends in mass, power, lift capability, price, and others. It will also show qualitative trends in corporate affiliation, regulatory and political legislation, and others. An examination of the impact of these trends, the influence the trends have had on the satellite and launch vehicle industries, the future impact these trends may have, and a summary of the key issues affecting the future growth of the industries will be presented.

Evaluation and Active Control of Clustered Hall Thruster Discharge Oscillations

“…LOSED drift Hall thrusters are used in many satellites today for station keeping and orbit boosting and an increasing number of spacecraft under development by the Air Force and NASA are utilizing this efficient means of propulsion [1][2][3] . Originally developed and extensively tested in the former Soviet Union, these thrusters employ orthogonal magnetic and electric fields to trap an ionizing layer of electrons and accelerate the generated ions, often achieving specific impulse performance in excess of 2000 seconds.…”