By Chris Forrester
Silicon Valley Space Week wrapped its Satellite Innovation sessions with a panel that discussed the benefits of collaboration and how to leverage supplier diversity and technology. Miguel Valero (MD, Space Strategies LLC) moderated his experts and talked about diversity and the new demands coming from the industry.
Bradley Williams, Associate Director for Flight Programs, NASA HQ, (and in particular the Heliophysics science mission which studies the sun). He had seven launches planned for 2025 as part of a 16-mission portfolio of projects, although stressed that his mission budgets were extremely modest.
Dr Markus Geiss, Commercial Director, DCUBED, (based in Munich, Germany, and focusing in particular on release actuators, solar arrays (“and anything that can be folded and which goes big in space”) and although a start-up said that from a commercial perspective it had just opened a Denver office in the US. One fascinating aspect of DCUBED products is the use of Origami-style structures that are – they say – “easy to manufacture and use”.
Patrick Shannon, Founder/CEO, Trust Point, which is building a fully commercial, next-generation GPS system. It will complement the existing GPS operation. He said the concept was to address new threats. He said he did not think that vertical integration, while valuable, was quite so essential these days. More important, he suggested, was a good supply chain expert on the staff..
Williams added that his ‘lean in’ strategy was focused on the small satellite arena, and his smaller budgets meant he had to leverage the supply chain for maximum value. He said he wanted to ‘lean in’ to gain the benefits of achieving cost-effective results to his programs. International collaboration was also important so that ideas could be exchanged, diversifying risks and building expertise and improved solutions adopted.
Dr Guiss said DCUBED was founded because of a perceived shortage of suppliers in the sector. “As a European company and a new player there has been some hesitation [from buyers] but there are also opportunities in the sense that we could be the one-out-of-twenty vendors which will not let you down. We pull the all-nighters, we express the shipments, we want to make you successful.”
Shannon said that while there were success stories such as SpaceX and Planet Labs which were very much vertically integrated, he felt that such vertical integration was no longer quite so important. “This, I believe, is a good thing. It means you do not need all the core competences in your own business to tap into the expertise of your suppliers. The talent that’s available in a supply chain is super-important, and becomes very valuable if it can be managed. We have to build a few hundred satellites, and we needed very dependable suppliers on this journey with us.”
Williams cautioned about using international suppliers which while being very important – and frequently at little or no cost to NASA – was ensuring transparency. “We need, of course, confidence and reliability for everything but increasing diversity at sub-system levels also required everyone to be part of a team and to grow and develop the project together.”