›Satellite and the Cloud 2020

Satellite and the Cloud is a match made, if not quite in heaven, then in orbit – GEO, MEO and LEO – although it took the satellite industry time to realise the full potential of going beyond just the delivery of Cloud-based applications to remote locations via satellite, that is, the way that the Cloud has been making its mark in the satellite sector over the course of the last decade.

Compared to the rest of the telecommunications sector, recognition of the greater opportunities in partnering with the Cloud is only now working through – and, as a result of leveraging reduction of upfront CAPEX, reduced OPEX, rapid scalability, ease of development and ubiquitous accessibility, is at the same time bringing evolutionary change to – the entire, and expanding, satellite industry value chain.

A value chain that engages both space segment and ground segment – with a cumulative revenue opportunity of nearly US$17.7 billion by 2028, according to the July 2019 NSR report Big Data Analytics via Satellite (3rd Edition) – and which can be characterised as encompassing data volumes and analytics products not only arising out of satellite communications network operations, but also generated by NewSpace Earth imaging/observation/remote sensing, and the IoT revolution.