ITU Smallsat Workshop
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Exponential Improvements in SmallSat Technology Jenny Barna! Launch Manager, Spire! [email protected] Spire’s Beginnings • Founded in 2012 as Nanosatisfi to launch cubesats with Arduino educational payloads! • Headquarters in San Francisco, CA! • Launched first crowd-funded satellite in 2013! • Rebranded to Spire in 2014 (Spire Global, Inc) 2 Spire Today • Raised $25M Series A (2014)! • Opened offices in Singapore, Glasgow! • Team of 40+ and growing! • Remote sensing payloads! • Global AIS ship tracking! • GPS-RO weather data ! • Ardusat-Spire educational partnership 3 Spire’s Launch History 4 satellites launched to date:! ! • ArduSat-1, ArduSat-X (1U)! August 2013! H-IIB/ISS! ! • ArduSat-2 (2U)! January 2014! Antares/ISS! ! • LEMUR-1 (3U) - operational June 2014! Dnepr 4 The TechnologyThe Technology The platform" • 3U cubesat! • Designed & manufactured by Spire • Leverages COTS hardware! • In-house software development! ! The constellation! • 20 satellites in orbit by end of 2015" • 100+ satellites in orbit in 3 years" • Variety of altitudes (500-700 km)" • Variety of inclinations" • Unprecedented coverage, revisit time 5 SmallSats:! Because we’ve come a long way since the 80’s. 6 HistoryMoore’s RepeatingLaw - Consumer Itself Electronics(Moore’s Law) 10x lighter! 1990 10x cheaper! 2015 100x more capable Mac IIfx Cost: $10,000! MacBook Air Cost: $1000! Weight: 24 pounds! Weight: < 3 pounds! Memory: 16 MB! Memory: 4 GB! Processor: 40 MHz Processor:1.4 GHz 7 HistoryMoore’s RepeatingLaw - Spacecraft Itself Sensors(Moore’s Law) 1000x ! price/performance improvement 5g (cubesat shop) TNO Digital Sun Sensor, 475g 2012 2006 8 Moore’sCubesat Law Technology - Cubesats Shift Memory Power Bandwidth 9 Easier,Launch More Opportunity Frequent Access Shift to Space 2000 2015 ULA launches costed about an average of $225 Spaceflight’s first SHERPA fully booked with Million, and were almost exclusively sold to the US SmallSats. SmallSats, Cubesats share a commercial Government, who does not support commercial launch (~$60M) at a cost on the order of 100s of secondaries. thousands each. 10 A Whole New Approach to Design, Build, Launch Legacy Build 15 year on orbit lifetime GEOs Freeze Design Launch 2005 2010 2015 2020 NewSpace SmallSat Build, Launch Build, Launch Build, Launch Build, Launch Build, Launch Build, Launch Build, Launch Build, Launch Approach Build, Launch 2 year on orbit lifetime & refresh 11 New Economics of Space Low Cost to Build & Launch ! Rapid Access to Space, Rapid Refresh Low Cost enables Higher Risk Tolerance! Drives Iterative, Aggressive Design Approach (Ok to fail)! Further Reduces Cost Unprecedented Access to Data about our Planet! Commercially Available & Relatively Cheap! Global and Real-Time Data (Constellations)! 12 The Full Picture: It’s not just the technology. Unprecedented Access to Space (Low Cost, High Frequency) Advances in Private Equity Nanotechnology Interest in Space (Low Cost, Highly Capable) Private Equity InterestBig Data in Big Data 13 Constellation Applications & Impact Weather & Climate Security Agriculture Monitoring Space Weather Route Optimization / Emissions Commodities Tracking 14 STEM Education - Tomorrow’s Space Industry • Access to in-orbit satellites for student-run experiments - $150 15 A New Marketplace around Small Satellites Dedicated NanoLauncher Secondary Companies! Launch • Rocket Lab! Integrators! • Firefly! • Spaceflight! • Virgin Galactic! • Tyvak! • Mishaal! • ISIS! • Generation Orbit! • TriSept • ATS! • S3! • and more… 16 Orbital Debris & Cubesats • Perception! • Reality:! • Chaos! Danger! Stop Silicon Valley! • Yes, it’s a real issue, but Cubesats present substantially less risk than conventional satellites! • Orbiting between 400-600 km! • Very small surface area lowers probability of collision! • De-orbit in 1-2 years! 17 Summary ! • Smaller & cheaper does not equal less value! • “Disposable” does not equal unreliable! • This is really happening; there’s an entire industry growing around it! • The envelope will continue to be pushed - see: Silicon Valley, private equity, Mars…! • An adaptive regulatory environment is necessary - not strict definitions now! • Unprecedented access to real-time space based data has implications we haven't yet realized 18 ! th thanks ! ! ! ! 19.