SPACE MARKETS

EVENTI SOTTO IL CIELO

DI JOSE SALGADO* SPACE INFRASTRUCTURE

20 years ago, sending a kilo of payload to low earth orbit using the Space Shuttle cost $55,000 dollars, nowadays, thanks to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 the cost per kilo has decreased by 95%. That is why 2020 stands as the year with the highest number of satellites launched in history, with over 1,283. This increase of satellites also means new opportunities for collateral services like refueling, satellite servicing, space situational awareness, and debris management for example. According to Northern Sky Research, forecast demand for GEO life extension mission by 2030 will represent a cumulative market opportunity of $3.2 billion dollars. Cheaper access to space will also enable a more robust human presence in space. Although Nasa has announced the intention to deorbit the International space station by 2031, new private space stations are currently under development by companies like Axiom Space, Blue Origin, Nanoracks/Voyager, and Northrop Grumman. As we continue creating the in-space economy, building infrastructure is a key factor. That is why the US-based company ThinkOrbital is proposing the Orb2, a space platform that is designed as a single-launch on-orbit assembly model, capable of delivering an internal spherical volume of up to 4,000 square meters. Orb2 is comprised of a series of octagon-shaped pieces that a robotic arm assembles in space and gets

*JOSE SALGADO IS A SPACE INDUSTRY ADVISOR AND FOUNDER OF D-CONSTRUCT SPACE CONSULTING. electron-beam welded. Once the spheric platform is built, a crew arrives to set up the station to the customer’s specifications. The company sees potential for their space platform in LEO, GEO, Moon, and even for asteroid mining. As Orb2 is a scalable product, pressurized and nonpressurized configurations will be available. “Use cases for our Orb2 platform include humanrated space station augmentation, in-space mining repository, fuel storage, manufacturing, and debris management,” says Sebastian Asprella, CEO and Co-founder. Their target is to have a subscale prototype ready by 2024, followed by a minimum viable product by 2026, and the launch of a full-scale Orb2 by 2028. According to Sebastian, “historically, the bottleneck in the space industry was the launch cost and capability. This is changing with SpaceX’s Starship, which will open the floodgates through its cost and capability, the bottleneck will shift from launch to space infrastructure.

We expect a lot of demand for

diverse infrastructure, from private space tourism, space manufacturing for both material and life sciences, as well as storage and on-orbit assembly and servicing of space assets”. Sebastian is right to mention SpaceX’s Starship as the enabler for more space infrastructure. Starship is not only the rocket that aims to take humans back to the Moon and Mars but also the rocket that will be capable of