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StatusOngoing
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Status date2025-02-24
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Activity Code1A.119
In this study, London Economics and OHB assesses the impact that Super Heavy-lift Launch vehicles (SHLV) will have on the satellite communications (satcom) industry.
The objectives of this report are to:
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Survey and assess of the capability of all SHLVs currently being developed globally with a credible first launch expected within the next 5-10 years including both private and publicly funded projects;
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Based on the expected capabilities from the introduction of these SHLVs, assess the main disrupting factors (technical, commercial, legal, societal, environmental, etc) including identifying any GEO-political constraints;
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Assess the impacts on satcom business cases and mission scenarios will then be explored, clearly identifying problems and opportunities followed by development of driving requirements;
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Identify and recommend any developments (including roadmaps and market schedules) needed to capitalise on these new capabilities and aligned with the driving requirements, in terms of technologies, products, and services for all aspects of the Satcom market (Space, Ground, User segments, etc).
The study identifies several challenges in evaluating the impact of SHLVs on the satcom market:
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Lack of Specifications: No formal specifications or reliable pricing data exist for SHLVs, making performance and cost predictions uncertain.
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Market Uncertainty: The satcom market is fast-evolving, and assessing its context a decade ahead requires speculative assumptions.
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Scope Limitations: The study does not design specific satcom architectures but explores potential use cases and impacts at a high level.
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Technological Uncertainty: Predicting future technology performance and costs involves inherent risks, requiring probabilistic approaches like Monte Carlo simulations to analyze varying outcomes.
In order to understand the potential disruptive impact of SHLVs (launch price and performance) on the potential addressability of this D2D use case, a reference architecture is proposed and key use case parameters such as satellite lifetime, satellite performance (throughput / data rate), satellite cost, launch cost, and overall Capex/Mbit/month figures are estimated.
To define this reference architecture, a constellation optimisation and system architecture analysis are undertaken. The impact of SHLVs on satellite design are assessed in terms of three possible optimisations: satellite cost optimisation, launch fairing & performance optimisation, and lifetime optimisation.
LEO constellation architectures will benefit the most from the SHLV introduction. At the same time, D2D is a challenging use case which requires powerful satellite payloads and huge antennas to close the link budget to a handheld device. The throughput, truly global coverage, and latency requirements of ‘wideband’ D2D is best met by a LEO constellation architecture.
To optimise the number and cost of satellites and associated launches, the constellation architecture design trades two parameters: orbital altitude and the number of satellites. The constellation must ensure continuous global coverage. For simplicity, we assume a uniform distribution and minimum overlap between satellites to minimise the number of required satellites. Further, it has been determined that the D2D use case requires a minimum elevation angle of 30°.
To address these requirements, a Polar Walker constellation at a 1,000km altitude is chosen. For global coverage, 220 satellites in 11 planes are required (18 satellites plus 2 spare satellites per plane). It is further assumed that a SHLV can transport 70t to a Polar 1,000 km orbit.
The approach taken to address achieve the stated objectives as to split the work into six parts under four lines of activity, with each part seeking to:
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Survey performance of SHVLs: Assess the magnitude and credibility of disruption brought about by the introduction of the currently developed SHLVs and compare this to the existing launch vehicle state-of-the-art.
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Mechanisms of SHLV disruption: Identify the mechanisms by which SHLVs could impact the satcom market, carried out “top-down” from the use cases and “bottom-up” via the technology.
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Use cases identification: Identify and articulate the needs and requirements for four key satcom use cases to assess the potential benefits from the introduction of SHLVs
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System architecture definition: Define of the satcom architectures that could leverage the capabilities of SHLVs and map these to those which could best meet the stated use cases.
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Impact assessment: Assess the impact of SHLVs on the identified use cases through the selection of a suitable system architecture.
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Gap analysis and roadmap: Development of a technology roadmap to mitigate any capability gaps identified to enable the satcom industry to leverage the advantages of SHLVs.
The critical part of this approach is that it will provide a linkage between the disruption and the technology roadmap that is being developed to enable full traceability of why the roadmap is being developed.
The study is complete.
By relaxing the mass and volume constraints system design, we find that SHLVs offer an opportunity to reduce the cost of individual subsystems and motivates a shift from a design philosophy focused on mass optimisation to one focused on cost optimisation of the system. Since launch costs are a larger proportion of current LEO constellations, this impact will be more disruptive for these architectures than others. SHVLs can therefore be expected to accelerate the adoption LEO architectures relative to others.
Overall, these findings suggest that SHLVs have the potential to disrupt the satcom industry, but much of this rests on uncertain assumptions of launch price trajectory. The reusability and improved scale economies of SHLVs translate into improvements in the cost of launch borne by the launch service provider (SpaceX), but the extent to which these savings are passed on to launch customers as reduced launch prices depend on the competitiveness of the market.
