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SPACE SCIENCES
What will 1700 satellites per year
mean for Africa?
By Dr Dawie de Wet (Pr. Eng. M.Sc. Eng.) – Group CEO of Q-KON Africa and Chief Engineer for Twoobii.
According to the latest Euroconsult report, the global satellite industry is now on course to build and
launch some 17 000 satellites over the next decade. The next ten years will see a race to deploy the first
mega-broadband constellations, plus a new constellation for real time earth observation.
What implications will these developments have for the African market?
1700 satellites per year for 10 years report, two key reasons combine to explain this disparity. The first is the economies of
The Euroconsult satellite market scale inherent in satellite manufacturing, and the second is a marked decrease in launch
forecast, individually assessed around prices.
170 constellation projects of which 110 In terms of revenue, it is interesting to note that governments will still represent the
originated from commercial companies. largest share of revenues over the next decade (an estimated $240 billion); this despite
While OneWeb, Starlink, Gwo Wang, the new business models being developed by commercial players entering the space
Kuiper and Lightspeed will collectively industry. Likewise, incumbent satellite manufacturers will likely continue to dominate the
account for some 58% of the anticipated market, with just four of them having captured half of the market over the past decade,
17 000 satellites to be launched, these to the value of $87 billion.
leading firms will only contribute In their follow-up annual Space Economy Report released in January 2022,
approximately 10% of the total satellite Euroconsult estimated that the global space economy in 2021 totalled some $370 billion.
manufacturing and launch revenues This figure includes commercial space revenues and government procurement of $337
of the space industry. According to the billion, in addition to $40 billion from governments for internal costs and R&D.
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