Evaluation Engineering - 6

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MONEY! IN! SPACE!
There is a revolution brewing in the space
business, and it only begins with reaching
orbit. Recent developments in the space business have resulted in more and cheaper access
to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) than ever before.
Now that near-Earth space has become a real
marketplace and environment for development, there is more opportunity and challenge
up there than was previously possible.
The challenges range from the issue of
space junk rendering the new frontier uninhabitable before it even gets started, to the
dangers of militarization in the orbital environment. Opportunities exist in creating
the intraorbital systems and infrastructures
being deployed as you read this. AI-enabled
Edge-Computing satellites, Cloud-enabled
aerospace systems, and consumer astronautics will become the norm up there.
The engineering community will be called
upon to address them, and the result will
be new solutions, which in turn will enable
newer applications, requiring better solutions,
and so on. Of course, test, measurement, and
evaluation systems must rise to that challenge as well. In the case of space businesses,
the engineering community will have several
interesting aspects to address.
Design engineers will be confronted with
a situation where mil/aero specifications
must be maintained, but consumer-level
functionalities are provided, We've pointed
out before that even the most demanding mil/
aerospace project doesn't have to worry about
their platform having to sync with iTunes, or
use V2X infrastructures to order lunch for
the astronauts. Consumers will go into space,
especially the well-heeled early adopters, expecting to find the same level of digital access
they did at home.
This means more RF testing, EMI and EMC
qualification, system compatibility, protocol
compliance evaluation, power management,
multimodal communication solutions, and
more. The list of application verticals in the
space (no pun intended) is long, and growing longer every day. Just the intraorbital
taxi or rideshare business, something that

EVALUATION ENGINEERING SEPTEMBER 2020

didn't exist a few decades ago, will provide a
tremendous opportunity to the engineering
industry for solutions.
One of the indicators of the explosion in
space business is the recent launch (pun
intended) of an online B2B platform that
helps match payloads with available launch
capacity. Developed by German IT company
HOSTmi, the platform will address hosting
payloads across a wide range of space platforms around the world, including orbital,
suborbital, and deep-space launches.
Every rocket has a certain capacity of payload it can carry to a specific orbit, and the
mass of the primary payload will usually be
less than the mass that the rocket can lift,
leaving spare capacity. Manufacturers and
operators try to sell this extra capacity for
smaller payloads, which are then added and
launched at the same time.
There's even a place for green technologies.
Beyond the obvious application vertical of
space junk, its tracking, and its clearance,
which will also require a lot of slide-rule
work, there are a lot of other ways to keep
space clean(er). For example, Benchmark
Space Systems, developer of green in-space
propulsion systems for small satellites, announced an exclusive services agreement
with rideshare provider Spaceflight Inc. to
provide a range of non-toxic chemical propulsion solutions.
These are designed to accelerate satellite
rideshare deployments to prime orbital locations aboard next-generation Sherpa orbital
transfer vehicles (OTVs). Benchmark's scalable, launch-vehicle agnostic propulsion product and services offers alternate rideshare
options over electric propulsion and other
legacy systems.
This and other market examples underscore the broad spectrum of application
verticals and development opportunities in
space today. The intraorbital marketplace
has many facets, and each of them require a
highly-engineered precision solution.
Alix Paultre,
Editor

34.5 BILLION
Global semiconductor
sales in June 2020

5.1%
Increase in semiconductor
sales over June 2019
Source: SIA

2.32 BILLION
North American semiconductor
equipment bills for June 2020

14.4%
Increase over June 2019
Source: SEMI

60%
Tech enterprises expecting
either no change or increase
in spending in 2020

40%
Tech enterprises expecting
reduced spending this year
because of COVID-19
Source: IDC

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Evaluation Engineering

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