AviationWeek.com/awst AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/MARCH 30-APRIL 12, 2015 31
term, we believed it’s not unlikely the
government will follow this commer-
cial path for resupply of deep space
exploration vehicles,” he said.
Crocker is not alone. One week after
the Jupiter announcement, a top ofcial
at incumbent CRS supplier Space Ex-
ploration Technologies (SpaceX) said
she sees the commercial potential of the
company’s new LOX/methane-fueled
deep-space rocket in development to
support human Mars missions.
“There is a surprising number of peo-
ple that want to leave Earth,” SpaceX
President Gwynne Shotwell said during
the Satellite 2015 show in Washington
March 17. “So we believe there is a com-
mercial market for that vehicle.”
However, while the Jupiter concept
resonates beyond the ISS, it is not clear
if NASA is willing to fund it under CRS.
But Jupiter ofers far more capability
than the CRS-2 contract calls for. “With
Jupiter, we are looking beyond LEO, but
at the same time we are very dependent
on this NASA procurement to acceler-
ate when it can be done,” he says.
Halliwell, whose company was an
early backer of SpaceX, has confi-
dence in the technologies that would
enable Jupiter and similar concepts,
particularly when it comes to moving
communications satellites from LEO to
GEO. But he says the cost of such in-
orbit delivery must be driven down to
a point where it is commercially viable.
“The Jupiter technology is good
and it will work, but the major stum-
bling block is: ‘Can I get to LEO for $20
million?’”he says. “If so, then the whole
thing starts to stack up. But if I have
to buy an Atlas V to get there, it isn’t
going to work.”
Meanwhile, Halliwell is touting the
capabilities of other companies to meet
satellite servicing requirements, nota-
bly Airbus Defense and Space, whose
sophisticated Automated Transfer Ve-
hicle (ATV) ran five cargo missions to
the ISS before it was retired last year.
“Some people are approaching us to
discuss how to use all of this technol-
ogy,” says Eric Beranger, head of pro-
grams in the space systems division
at Airbus Defense and Space, which is
evolving ATV into a service module for
NASA’s Orion crew vehicle in develop-
ment at Lockheed Martin.
Beyond ISS resupply, Beranger and
Crocker say potential new LEO constel-
lations of Internet smallsats ofer even
greater opportunity for Jupiter and
similar concepts. (See page 32.) c
Amy Svitak WashingtonThe Year
Of the Smallsat
Spacecraft manufacturers, launchers
positioning to meet demand from emerging
Internet constellations in low Earth orbit
S
ensing a potentially major new
market, rocket and spacecraft
builders are positioning them-
selves to appeal to the designers of
small satellite constellations that could
serve a multitude of uses, starting with
global Internet service.
Smallsats are already in growing
demand for Earth-observation and
remote-sensing missions. In the com-
ing weeks, startup satellite Internet
fleet operator OneWeb LLC is expect-
ed to name an industrial partner that
will help design and build up to 900
smallsats aimed at providing global
broadband coverage.
Based in Britain’s Channel Islands,
OneWeb has narrowed the choice to
five prospective prime contractors in
Europe and the U.S. to build their con-
stellation as part of a joint venture be-
tween OneWeb and the manufacturer.
Regardless of the winner, the satellites
are expected to be built at a new facil-
ity in the U.S. to be jointly owned by
OneWeb and its co-contractor.
As an example of how radical the
production shift will be for satellite
makers, OneWeb founder Greg Wy-
ler says each spacecraft is expected to
cost no more than $400,000-$500,000
to produce. OneWeb’s constellation is
based on about 650 smallsats operat-
ing in a 1,200-km (745-mi.) low Earth
orbit (LEO), as well as some ground
spares, for a total of around 900 small
spacecraft.
Several manufacturers are bid-
ding for the OneWeb contract based
on their experience with smallsats,
though most of them are known for
building much larger one-off space-
craft. Thales Alenia Space of France
and Italy is an exception, touting its ex-
perience in assembly-line production
of small spacecraft in its bid for One-
Web: Thales built Globalstar’s second-
generation constellation of 24 mobile
communications satellites currently inorbit, and the company is prime con-
tractor for the Iridium NEXT constel-
lation of 66 satellites to be launched
starting late this year.
Thales also built 12 mobile Ka-band
broadband satellites for O3b Networks,
which operates from a unique 8,000-
km equatorial orbit. O3b was founded
by Wyler and now counts commercial
fleet operator SES of Luxembourg as
its primary shareholder.
In addition to its bid for OneWeb,
Thales is under contract to design and
cost a rival satellite Internet constella-
tion for startup LeoSat, a company led
by former Kymeta chief Vern Fother-
ingham that plans to deploy up to 120
smallsats in LEO for fixed and mobile
satellite broadband services.
“After Globalstar, Iridium and O3b,
this will be another major evolution of
the market, if it happens,” says Thales
Alenia Space President and CEO Jean-
Loic Galle, adding that Wyler’s price-
point “is not a crazy number.” To meet
it, Galle says Thales will revisit its in-
ternal and external supply chains that
produce “components, subsystems,
solar array panels, computers and
avionics, sensors and reaction wheels
that obviously are not the ones we are
using on the [geostationary] satellites,
because each of those components has
a bigger price than that of the overall
satellites as required by our potential
customers.”
Also bidding on the OneWeb con-
stellation is Space Systems/Loral
(SSL), a company best known for
building large commercial telecom
satellites that operate in geostationary
orbit. But the company was recently
selected by Google’s Skybox Imaging
acquisition to build 13 small Earth-
imaging spacecraft at SSL’s Palo Alto
plant in California.
Lockheed Martin, which indus-
try officials say is also bidding on
OneWeb, was the prime contractor