The WSBW 2025 conference featured two sessions dedicated to satellite design and production, covering both technical and market aspects. The discussion at the first session – Global Space Infrastructure Leaders – was presented by executives from six leading space infrastructure companies — key players defining the industry itself: Leonardo, Thales Alenia Space, Airbus, MDA, Maxar, and Boeing. The presentations and discussions at this session were characterised by a healthy conservatism: government contracts as the basis for growth, with large and heavy geostationary satellites. The second session – Satellite Manufacturing Disruptors hosted – representatives of New Space — startups aiming to redefine the satellite design and manufacturing market: AscendArc, Reorbit, Reflex Aerospace, Swissto12, Hemeria, and Axelspace Corporation. And here revolutionary ideas were dominant: lead times can be reduced, small satellites should operate like large and heavy ones, a satellite is a set of software with components viewed as a configurable and optimised parameter. 

New Platforms and Approaches

  Airbus is finalising the development of its proprietary software-defined OneSat platform, with key design and technology issues resolved and the first satellites scheduled for launch in 2027. MDA is currently developing two satellite platforms to cover two main areas of the space business: communications and Remote Sensing. The MDA Aurora digital communications platform is being developed in two versions: one to support broadband Internet access and one to implement direct satellite communications from mobile devices (D2D). Despite the recent termination of a major contract with EchoStar, MDA has got orders booked for approximately $5 billion. Boeing delivered new software-defined communications satellites O3b mPower (SES) and PSN N5 (Indonesia) to customers. Technologies tried and tested on these platforms are successfully applied in both commercial and complex government programmes.

Swissto12, perhaps the most successful startup of the new wave of developers, is promoting a concept of small geostationary satellites (SmallGEO), where it offers the HummingSat platform weighing approximately 1000 kg. Today, the company has an order for five satellites: one for Intelsat (after the merger – SES), three for Viasat.

Another satellite has been ordered by Singaporean operator Astromobile, which intends to provide D2D services using a geostationary satellite.  

Reflex Aerospace develops platforms weighing 500-1000 kg, and already launched one satellite from this series in 2025. The company does not produce payloads (PL) adapting its platforms to the customer's PL. The order completion time of 12 months was stated as a competitive advantage. In addition, the company is working on creating an optical communications satellite with unmanned vehicles and two satellites that will create a stereo image of the Earth's surface. As noted by Reflex Aerospace CEO Walter Ballheimer, space is an attractive investment for financial institutions in Germany today. Investment in the space industry is growing, creating favourable conditions for development for Reflex Aerospace. 

Hemeria is a defence-focused company, which supplies satellite systems and components – including solar panels and batteries – to Airbus, Thales, and OHB. Their range of applications covers platforms for geostationary and low-orbit systems. One of the interesting projects that has become the subject of discussion is the manoeuvring stratospheric balloon Balmain capable of remaining at a certain point at an altitude of 25 km for 9-12 months. AscendArc offers communications satellites for geostationary orbit and already has one order from regional operator KTSAT. Chris McLain has announced a heavy satellite – similar to what Airbus or Thales offer – at the price of a small satellite. As he claims, today a traditional satellite for 1 Gbit/s of throughput bears 10 kilogrammes of the satellite mass itself. McLane said the first-generation AscendArc satellites would require 2 kg of satellite mass per Gbps, with that figure eventually dropping to 1 kg. The company's main concept is to equalise the cost of data transmission via satellite with the cost of transmission via fibre-optic communication lines. This will help solving the problem of connecting residents at any point on Earth. This can only be achieved by creating a large number of beams in the coverage area, and AscendArc has created a satellite antenna with a large aperture of 4.5 meters, which is capable of generating up to 800 beams. The antenna is stationary, so the satellite can only be launched by super-heavy launch vehicles – New Glenn and Starship.

Reorbit has already presented its unusual and interesting concept at various forums: the satellite is formed as a software core, around which the spacecraft itself is assembled. Parameters — for example, reliability — are optimised at the customer's option; components are purchased individually for each project and, essentially, are also a parameter that can be flexibly adapted to certain conditions. For example, the availability of certain components. Reorbit has two contracts (literally, the speaker said: "a couple of contracts") for geostationary satellites, and the first satellite they are developing for the European Space Agency will be launched in 2026.  Overall, the panellists agreed that no satellite will achieve business success unless it has an adequate ground segment. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a 5G ecosystem, which will make it possible to use inexpensive modems and terminals through mass production.

Government Contracts are Main Industry Driver

Government and defence contracts will be the primary driver of market growth over the next few years, as unanimously recognised by all attendees at the Global Space Infrastructure Leaders session. The geopolitical environment is driving countries around the world to seek to develop sovereign space systems — primarily communications ones — to support national security services and other critical applications. Commercial technologies are increasingly being adapted to address dual-use challenges, and governments are acting as anchor customers, ensuring stability and growth in the industry.

Leonardo Space is investing in a multi-purpose constellation of Earth observation satellites, planning to sell its services to the Italian Ministry of Defence. Thales Alenia Space plans to work on European defence contracts over the next 10 years, especially since these European ambitions are supported by funding plans — approximately €130 billion are planned for defence, a significant portion of which is to be allocated for space systems. Airbus has stabilised its business after a difficult 2024 for the company, and in 2025 it has already launched nine of its expensive satellites, according to the company's Head of Space Systems Alain Fauré. By the end of the year, another one will be launched into orbit, and of these ten space assets, seven were manufactured for government customers (the speaker literally reported about 70% of the 10 satellites). Airbus forecasts annual growth of 6% over the next five years, with government orders expected to be its main driver.

Ryan Reid, President of Boeing Satellite Systems International, noted rising defence spending in the U.S. and other countries, making government procurement a growth area for the company. The satellite architecture developed for complex government missions can be used in civilian projects, especially where separation of different users is required — civilian, military, local operators, and sovereign networks of different countries. 

Sovereignty-as-a-Service

Recently, there has been increasing demand for sovereignty in the field of satellite communications.  The geopolitical situation has forced many countries to reconsider their dependence on foreign space systems, and sovereign states have raised relevant demands. First, they want all critical communications to be completely controlled by the country's structures. These include not only communications for law enforcement agencies, but also banking networks, energy and transport. This means that all traffic and satellite control must be confined within the state. Secondly, some countries want control over the supply chain: they want to choose which countries' components will be installed on the satellite. And thirdly, they need to develop a national space info-communications project as a single controlled ecosystem. Meaning that it is about not being limited to acquiring a satellite and some attached infrastructure, but rather acquiring technologies and knowledge for the development of their own space industry.

Naturally, space technology developers do not intend to leave this niche without their attention. Classic players, such as Boeing, offer satellite architecture that can implement independent networks on a single satellite. Startups, such as Swissto12, offer small geostationary satellites that, in theory, should be affordable to low-income customers. AscendArc views the sovereign satellite network market as a promising one, but sees it as a kind of springboard: the company will develop innovations, introduce the platform to the world, and then be able to open new markets for its satellites. 

Renaissance of Geostationary Satellites

Following Starlink's triumphant march across the global telecom market, geostationary satellite systems were overshadowed for some time by low-orbit mega-constellations. The satellite manufacturing and launch market began to shrink, and suspicions arose that it would soon collapse completely. However, a sound assessment of the operation results of various satellite systems has shown that geostationary systems have a number of advantages and are unlikely to lose them in the near future. At a lower cost, GEO satellites allow for greater coverage, offer lower prices per megabit transmitted and have a much larger coordinated frequency spectrum, etc. To fully realise these benefits, geostationary systems need to adapt to the current situation. Operators need to offer not just an abstract geostationary satellite or a communications channel through it, but a tool for targeted investments in applications that generate profit and solve a specific market problem. A successful development strategy for operators in this segment should be to enter those areas of the market where the advantages of GEO are evident.

At the same time, it is also advisable to refrain from investing where there is strong competition from low-orbit constellations. 

The general consensus among speakers of the “Global Space Infrastructure Leaders” session was that, despite the pessimistic forecasts, the geostationary satellite market was not dead and would even grow. Large communications platforms are in demand because the price per transmitted bit matters. 

Thales Alenia Space has been awarded three contracts for large geostationary satellites in 2025. Maxar's management expects that the introduction of heavy and super-heavy rockets into commercial operation will provide a significant stimulus to the development of the heavy satellite market.

The panellists demonstrated that the satellite industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation, with new companies having fundamentally new ideas determined to carve out their niches. 

First of all, startups plan to break the traditional lead times: if previously, as the speakers claim, the manufacturing process of a geostationary satellite took 5-10 years (which is exaggerated to some extent — Intersputnik’s note), while new players — AscendArc, Reorbit and Swiss-to-12 — intend to reduce the lead time to 2-3 years or even 12 months. With a simultaneous drastic reduction in price. Chris McLane believes the market needs a mass-produced geostationary satellite built from the same components as low-orbit satellites. And this device will be an order of magnitude cheaper than existing ones. "Some bits are delay sensitive, while every bit is cost sensitive,” said Chris McLane.

Ways to reduce costs and speed up production are standardisation, modularity and 3D printing. Small geostationary satellites are ideal for creating sovereign networks or for rapid deployment in areas of sudden demand. 

New Industrialisation

In response to the growing demand for large satellite constellations, communications satellite manufacturers are actively investing in new "smart factories" and advanced manufacturing technologies, such as digitalisation, the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) and additive manufacturing. This will help to increase production volumes, reduce lead times and lower costs.

Leonardo Space is actively working on the digitalisation of space technologies and the use of AI. MDA plans to begin mass production of satellites in 2026, for which it is expanding its production capacity. To control important parts of the supply chain, MDA is increasing its vertical integration, recently acquiring an electronics component manufacturer. Boeing has introduced 3D printing to cut solar panel production time in half. Swissto12 also uses 3D printing in the production of antennas.

So, the leading players concentrate in their hands the production of the maximum possible number of key components. For them, this is an opportunity to control quality and lead times. Expanding production to accommodate large orders allows for a reduction in unit costs.

However, startups see this issue differently: giant mega-factories and complete vertical integration are not optimal. Walter Ballheimer reckons that large mega-constellations – for which it only makes sense to create powerful manufacturing – will always be produced within an operating company. The real commercial market consists of customers who need between 10 and 40 satellites, sometimes complex and unique ones – for example, with Synthetic Apperture Radar. Under such conditions, a mega-factory is ineffective. It creates a local surplus that will be difficult to sell. It turns out that European space sovereignty has a nuance: Sethu Saveda Suvanam, founder and CEO of ReOrbit, says that national interests will be an obstacle to implementing projects in Europe: The French government will never approve the purchase of a satellite constellation from a German manufacturer provided that there is a French company capable of handling the order. The same is true in the opposite situation: Germany will not buy a constellation from a French group of companies if there is a German manufacturer. When expanding beyond the European continent – ​​say, a German company sells its satellites in India – the situation becomes even more complicated. Lobbying for such contracts is incredibly difficult. There's only one solution: set up production in the country where you sell your products. Therefore, instead of one mega-factory, it's better to have multiple micro-factories with the ability to adapt them to production in the customer's country. The future lies in a distributed network of “micro-factories”: small, flexible, low-capital-cost production facilities that can be deployed in customer countries.

Verticalization is also not very attractive to startups. They value the balance between what they produce inhouse and what they buy. Nicolas Multan, CEO of Himeria, believes that verticalization is not necessary for production of less than 1,000 satellites per year. In a highly verticalized and concentrated production environment, it is more difficult to introduce innovations in every element and system of your product. A tightly structured supply chain is good for smooth production and meeting contract deadlines, but it can hinder the implementation of sovereign projects, as it may be important for the customer to abandon one or more links in this chain. AscendArc, for example, independently develops and manufactures only unique, design-critical components – antennas and transmitters. The company purchases all standard components on the open market. ReOrbit is actually on the opposite pole of full vertical integration, as it produces only the electronic model of the spacecraft, adjusting its components to customer parameters. 

Leading satellite and systems designers are showing confidence in future growth driven by robust demand from government and defence sectors. In turn, representatives of the New Space are implementing innovations that are intended to break many stereotypes that were applicable to the industry for several decades. This combination (even if some startups do not implement their projects) can develop into a harmonious, flexible structure focused on customer needs and capable of supporting all development trends in modern satcom.