CAPITALI$M IN SPACE

Can Europe’s satellite companies like Arianespace take on Elon Musk’s SpaceX?

 2021-07-12

Last year, Arianespace’s Vega launcher completed the first European “rideshare” mission for small satellites with 53 satellites for 21 customers on board. The launcher, which is part of the European Space Agency (ESA) programme, is tailored to carry small scientific spacecraft but in order to share the launch cost, it offers the service to private companies as well.

“We are moving on from a sector of launching, which was mostly geostationary satellites for 30 or 40 years to what is now called the new space,” Marino Fragnito, Arianespace’s senior vice-president and head of the Vega Business Unit, told Euronews Next. The rideshare service called Small Spacecraft Mission Service (SSMS) has attracted the attention of start-ups as well as bigger tech companies.

Traditionally, satellites have been used for communications and TV services but in recent years, tech companies have needed to launch their own satellites to create space internet networks to send data directly to people’s devices. “Start-ups are looking for opportunities in space because space is the new frontier,” said Fragnito, who added start-ups from the US are now also using the Vega launcher.

Why do we need satellites? “We’re moving on from the old space to the new space”.

“Space is full of new opportunities for a new kind of business to help life on Earth”. It’s communication and Internet of Things companies, however, that are the biggest sectors showing a real interest in space satellites, he explained.

Typically, sending a small satellite weighing 25-50 kilograms into low Earth orbit can cost between €85,000 and €840,000. But Arianespace is not the only company to offer such a service. SpaceX is leading the market for tech companies with its Falcon 9 rocket and has made satellite orbiting much cheaper. Since 2018, it has been launching batches of small satellites into orbit in order to form what is called a “constellation” to provide instant broadband on Earth.

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