By Chris Forrester
Mike Greenley, CEO at MDA Space explained that the Canadian-based company was now seeing revenues of $1 billion annually. He delivered a fascinating Keynote at SVSW, and which covered multiple topics and which gave a remarkable insight into MDA’s current strategy.
He said: “We are experiencing rapid growth. We are experiencing 25-30 percent growth and see that continuing at that rate over the next few years. We are enjoying a good run.”
“The statistics suggest a $1.8 trillion global market, but the Chinese view the space opportunity as 5 to 10-times larger than we in the West,” he told delegates at the Mountain View event.
“But today there is considerable transition, from sole government customers to a greater commercial growth and this is representing huge growth opportunities. Almost our entire pipeline is now commercial. The ISS will go out of use in the next 4-5 years but we have three or four new space station suggestions to look at. But there’s also a closer relationship between government and commercial, and where government agencies are buying all aspects of commercial infrastructure. This includes military activity, and technologies are being shared.”
“Innovation is accelerating. Launch, and the cost and capacity of launch is tumbling. The level of professionalism at SpaceX is impressive, and these trends are helping hugely and driving much of the current growth.”
“We are transforming from 25 years of government and government cash for the ISS to privately funded space stations and we believe this to be extremely powerful. There will be space tourism, but there’s much, much more. Even Hilton Hotels are working with one orbital space station project. The prospects for Medical activity in space and the probability of space-based industrial parks is very real.” He also said he thought there was enough demand from the world’s 90 Space Agencies to support multiple space stations. There will be multi-year programs to send astronauts to space. Industrial applications will also grow and in particular exploitation of zero gravity. A hotel developer can spend $2 billion to build a new hotel, or it could invest $2 billion in a space-based hotel.
“Think about this: that about one third of the planet’s people, who currently have no access to communications, will find connectivity and the changes this represents are very powerful indeed. Constellations also mean we can build new production lines and going from one satellite a week to a year from n ow to producing two satellites per day. The discussions we have with our constellation clients usually means a conversation with follow-on craft, about next-generation satellites and allows us to stand on the work and investment we have done.”
“We can also see the probability of our cellphones moving from inside WiFi, through 5G and 6G and satellite-based connectivity to absolutely anywhere on the planet. It is the same for automative activity, and agricultural activity for satellite communications.”
Greenley was asked about supply chain problems, and he said that post-Covid was still challenging but he tried to incorporate timings. “Cashflows are sometimes more difficult with customers, but our evaluation of suppliers is now more important than ever.”
He explained that In-Space orbital servicing was interesting even though 10 years or so ago they backed away from the opportunity. “There’s going to be some work there. The Military side of in-orbit servicing is probably a stronger market.”