Small Satellite Market Will Grow to $22.9 Billion by 2028: Report
According to the latest research study from The Insight Partners titled "Small Satellite Market Size, Share, Revenue, Growth Strategy, Industry Trends and Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Satellite Type, Application, Vertical, and Geography", the global small satellite market size is expected to grow from $5.8 billion in 2021 to $22.9 billion by 2028 at a CAGR of 22.2% between 2022 and 2028.
The demand for small satellites has been mainly driven by the commercial sectors that are majorly focusing on launching different services across different regions. The growing demand for constellation projects worldwide for commercial and government applications is one of the major factors propelling the growth of the global small satellite market. Further, in developed countries with a significant number of small satellite manufacturers, the demand is mainly catered by domestic vendors, wherein foreign companies cannot capture much of the market share.
The rising number of satellite launches over the years has been another major factor catalyzing the small satellite market. For instance, during 2012-2022, over 4,663 small satellites were launched from over 44 launch vehicles across the world, wherein 6 main launchers, including Falcon 9, Soyuz, PSLV, Antares, Atlas V, and Electron, accounted for around more than 80% of the units launched.
Small Satellite Market Expected to See Robust Growth
The global small satellite market volume is likely to witness nearly robust growth during the next 10 years, from 2022 to 2032. It is expected that more than 18,000 units of small satellites are expected to be launched by the end of 2032, which is further projected to drive the small satellite market during the forecast period.
Small satellite manufacturers are focusing on developing different types of satellites for different applications, such as weather monitoring and forecasts, communication, environmental emissions, and earth observation satellites. Manufacturers are also facing several challenges in meeting the rapidly rising demand for small satellite products. Slow satellite production rates, slow operational rate of subsystems, and limitations in current launch services worldwide are other challenges they face. Such factors are likely to hamper the small satellite market in the near future.
In addition, introducing low-cost launch services is one of the major trends that is burgeoning the demand for small satellite launch vehicles. Several companies are focusing on the development of multiple launch vehicles that will accommodate multiple small satellites to launch at the same time. As per the current scenario, most satellite operators access the space on large launch vehicles with ridesharing capabilities, which also leads to launching their satellites as secondary payloads, becoming dependent on the primary payload satellite. To manage this challenge, many market players, such as ISRO, NASA, SpaceX, and other organizations, are working on developing launch vehicles with less than 2 tons capacity that can be used to launch multiple small satellites. This is expected to open new growth windows for small satellite manufacturers during the forecast period.
(Source: The Insight Partners news release. Images from file)