Satellite Industry Continues to Have Slow, Steady Growth, SIA Reports

The satellite industry globally had revenue of $268.6 billion last year, its third straight year of low-single-digit percentage growth, and the U.S. share at $113 billion marked a third year of similar growth, the Satellite Industry Association's reported Wednesday. Bryce Space and Technology prepared the report. SIA said of the 1,738 satellites in orbit as of year's end, commercial communications accounted for 31 percent and earth observation another 29 percent, by far the biggest categories. It said 345 commercially procured satellites were launched last year, more than double the 126 in 2016, with cubesat traffic driving most of that. Bryce Senior Program Manager Anton Dolgopolov said cubesat traffic likely would be similar this year, as long as launch availability doesn't get constricted. The eight total geostationary orbit satellite orders of 2017 are "a disproportionately low year" and could be an anomaly since there have been eight orders so far in 2018, said Bryce CEO Carissa Christensen. Roughly half of those 345 were earth observation satellites, SIA said. Christensen said venture capital funding of smallsats gravitated toward earth observation first, and now those constellations are starting to be deployed while communications smallsats are in the planning and development stages. 2017 was the second year of double-digit revenue growth for earth observation, and the completion of some constellations should mean an even higher growth rate this year, SIA President Tom Stroup said. Satellite broadband revenue rose 4 percent and subscribers gained 5 percent to roughly 2 million, SIA said. Stroup said the industry has been constricted on capacity, but recent launches of high-throughput satellites by ViaSat and EchoStar should allow bigger satellite broadband subscriber growth this year. U.S. operators had notable revenue drops in DBS and growth in managed services, SIA said. It said the average price per kilogram for launch dropped 40 percent from 2016, due to cheaper SpaceX launches and fewer expensive United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket launches than in 2016. The Russian launch industry continues to lose market share as reliability concerns scare off potential customers, along with a deliberate pull back on commercial activity and a focus more on supporting the Russian national space program, said Dolgopolov. SIA said launch industry revenue fell 16 percent to $4.6 billion, and the U.S. had the largest share of commercially procured launch revenue at 39 percent.