In the coming decade, the number of satellites launched is projected to dwarf the current orbiting population, creating a $665 billion market in manufacturing and launch services. According to a new analysis by market intelligence group NovaSpace, the defense sector will be the key driver in this expansion.
Skyrocketing Satellite Launches
NovaSpace’s annual „Satellites to Be Built and Launched” report forecasts that over 43,000 satellites will be launched between 2025 and 2034, reshaping competition across orbits and applications. Currently, US Space Command’s Space.track.org database identifies approximately 12,500 active satellites in orbit.
Mega-Constellations Dominate Volume
While government and commercial mega-constellations, such as SpaceX’s Starlink and Starshield, Amazon’s Kuiper, and China’s Qianfan and Guowang networks, will account for 66 percent of the satellites launched, they will represent only 11 percent of the market value, NovaSpace projects.
Defense Spending: The Economic Anchor
Defense remains the market’s economic anchor, capturing 48% of total value despite representing just 9% of satellite volume. Caleb Henry, research director at Quilty Space, concurred with the report’s analysis, noting the continued centrality of defense spending to the global commercial space market. „The business world is quite dynamic, and we’re seeing a sea change where everyone is a defense contractor now,” he told Breaking Defense.
Ensuring Resilient Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT)
The US Army recognizes the dependency on GPS signals for PNT and has implemented measures to protect it. Joint and allied forces have traditionally relied on space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT), such as GPS, for real-time battlespace awareness, command and control synchronization, and precision operations. However, adversaries can disrupt the availability of these signals in contested areas. As the Joint Force faces future challenges, it must seek alternative sources of accurate PNT information to ensure continuous availability.
MAPS Gen II: An Alternative PNT Solution
To address these challenges, the Army’s Mounted Assured Positioning, Navigation, and Timing program of record, MAPS Gen II, provides soldiers, Marines, and allied forces with an authoritative and reliable source of PNT. MAPS Gen II augments M-Code with a variety of alternate sources of navigation data and signals of opportunity, all brought together by a multi-source sensor fusion engine.
Collins Aerospace, an RTX business, has delivered MAPS Gen II systems to the U.S. Army and U.S. Marines and will continue deliveries under Full Rate Production.
Redundancy is Key
“In addition to secure M-Code GPS, Collins has built a system with multiple layers of redundant protection against jamming and spoofing,” said Sandy Brown, vice president and general manager for Resilient Navigation Solutions, Collins Aerospace, an RTX business. “An Assured PNT system with several layers of redundancy will ensure the operator maintains access to trusted PNT in the most contested environments.”
MAPS Gen II can defeat electronic warfare and other threats to PNT by replacing legacy GPS receivers with multiple layers of redundancy. It ingests navigation data from multiple sensors, including low Earth orbit-constellations and non-RF-based sensors. The embedded NavFusion engine blends those alternative signals together to deliver an accurate, non-RF based PNT solution with a high degree of accuracy, even when M-Code is unavailable.
Market Dynamics and Challenges
NovaSpace further projects that the market for satellite manufacturing and launch will remain largely siloed within nations or vertically locked into one owner/operator’s business. The report notes that SpaceX likely will continue to hold „a near-monopoly over heavy launch in the West,” and that its Starship promises to profoundly redefine space transportation and the space economy at large, even though Starship has yet to prove viable. The Pentagon is already considering Starship for point-to-point delivery supplies through suborbital space anywhere on the globe within 90 mins or less.
