Eutelsat Does the Math on Reducing Future Satellite Costs

[bananas]

http://spacenews.com/eutelsat-does-the-math-on-reducing-future-satellite-costs-by-at-least-20-percent/

Eutelsat Does the Math on Reducing Future Satellite Costs
by Peter B. de Selding — December 3, 2015


Eutelsat’s goal is to bring down the cost of a high-throughput satellite from 4 million euros per gigabit per second — the cost of its Ka-Sat satellite — to 1 million euros per Gbps of throughput. The figure would include the cost of the satellite, its launch, its gateway Earth stations and insurance. Electric propulsion and launcher competition are a start, but Eutelsat is also counting on coming technologies to get costs to the desired level. At 1 million euros per Gbps, satellite broadband would compete with terrestrial transmissions with mass-market appeal.

PARIS — Eutelsat plans to reduce the cost of its future satellites by some 20 percent initially, with more savings to come, as it seeks to adapt to a changing competitive environment, company officials said Dec. 1.

The immediate reductions are being made possible by a combination of all-electric satellite propulsion and a more-competitive launch-service environment.

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The total capital cost of placing a telecommunications satellite into geostationary orbit is made up of the satellite’s construction, accounting for 50 percent of the total; 30 percent for the launch vehicle; and the rest reserved for insurance charges and diverse expenses.

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[longship]

1. Cost to orbit is all about mass.

There's that nasty Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. To get out of Earth's gravity well, most of the energy spent is to get the all the fuel necessary to get out of the Earth's gravity well out of Earth's gravity well.

That is why it takes a 36 story tall rocket, almost all of it fuel, to get three dudes, in a small capsule at the top, to the moon.

Isaac Newton!