Jane Edwards
Satellite industry leaders on Tuesday talked about innovations and challenges facing the space economy and industry during a panel discussion at a conference and Intelsat CEO Dave Wajsgras joined the panel to discuss the opportunity that underserved and unserved populations present to the sector, Via Satellite reported.
“You’ve got the underserved and unserved populations, geographically around the world … that’s a compelling opportunity and necessary opportunity that all of us here will participate in serving,” said Wajsgras, a 2023 Wash100 awardee.
He mentioned the emerging and traditional markets that are going to drive the demand for satellite services.
“You have traditional markets that are growing substantially. If you talk about enterprise and mobility in general, and then new markets, 5G markets … rolling out globally. Then there’s new verticals that are going to demand the type of service we offer, more so than in the past. Think agriculture, think energy, different types of industries. At the end of the day, you have basic global economics 101. From everything that I’ve seen and read, the demand is continuing to outpace the supply,” Wajsgras said.
Wajgras and other industry executives also talked about sustainability in space.
“If you go back 50 years, no one was talking about this,” said Wajsgras. “But as cybersecurity became a nation-state problem, people started to give it some mindshare. Then it was an all-hands-on deck approach. I think that’s the same approach we need to get there with space sustainability but we’re not there yet.”
