Military Embedded Systems

Small satellite market to nearly quadruple over 7-year period: report

News

September 27, 2022

Dan Taylor

Technology Editor

Military Embedded Systems

NEW YORK, New York. A new report predicts that the global small satellite market will be four times bigger in 2028 than it was in 2021, increasing from $5.8 billion to $22.9 billion over that period for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.2%.

The report, from The Insight Partners, states that commercial sectors are mainly driving the growth, but government demand for constellation projects is also a major factor.

The report notes that satellite launches have been rising in recent years, with 4,663 small satellites launched from 2012-2022 over 44 launch vehicles. By 2032, the report predicts that more than 18,000 units of small satellites will be launched.

"[M]ost 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," the report states. "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."