Industry Cites Demand, Rapid Production as Key to Driving Space Economy

Space industry executives pointed to rapid production and customer demand as a key factor in driving the space economy and opening new opportunities in space-related efforts, Florida Today reported Thursday.

Chester Gillmore, vice president of spacecraft development at Planet Labs, said at an Aerospace Corporation Center for Space Policy and Strategy event in Florida that accelerated production and having a variety of options for launching satellites has helped the company expand its space efforts.

“You’re going to have to be able to keep up if you're going to launch thousands of satellites,” added David Goldman, director of satellite policy at SpaceX.

Last week, SpaceX launched the first batch of small satellites to low-Earth orbit that will serve as part of the planned Starlink megaconstellation for broadband communications.

In addition, Chris Winslett, satellite program director for OneWeb, cited customer demand as an important element for driving the space industry aside from rapid production.

“We not only mass manufacture satellites, the idea really is to create an ecosystem of suppliers out there and partners and customers who are going to feed that,” he said.

After the event, Aerospace Corporation Vice President of defense systems operations Jamie Morin said, “The thing that struck me from today’s conversation is just how important agility is for opening up new opportunities in space.”