Commercialization of Excess Capacity in Electro-Optical Satellites

Significant investment levels required for design, manufacture, launch and operations of electro-optical satellites usually leads governments into initiating the financing of such space projects. Along government needs there is commercial demand to goods and services obtained from these satellites. Since area of interest for both public and private end users usually differentiates noticeably and nature of orbital revolutions fit conveniently into serving these regional interests, it is a logical decision on the government side to task commercial entities for exploiting the excess capacity of these satellites to create return on investment. Upon commissioning of the satellites, governments may select a commercializing entity and authorize it with distribution rights of the excess capacity as a percentage of available imaging time over global regions or may assign the right to image, collect and sell the imagery globally. Excess capacity may be a dominant portion of available imaging time depending on the area of interest of the end user. Modes of commercial operation may be based on either centralized tasking or regional tasking of the satellites. Success of commercial exploitation of excess capacity is deeply tied into financial motivators. Profit maximization, through cost consciousness and quality of service through product conformance and timely delivery are key factors to success. Such parameters require segregated and independent commercial and governmental operations in which government may conduct its own collections and perform tasks such as orbital maintenance while the commercial entity would consolidate global imaging, allocate passes and assign access windows for commercial purposes. While these modes of operations are dependent on the technology of the system in hand they may additionally be modulated by regulations, priorities and sanctions of the government which may have adverse effects on commercialization. Central Tasking may involve programming th- e satellite for each revolution and disseminating the data from one primary ground station or data may be regionally down linked directly from the satellite to the receiving only ground stations as it passes overhead. On the other hand, in Direct Tasking the satellite is tasked from several regional ground stations spread around the earth and these ground stations receive the collected imagery data resultant of such tasking. In both modes of operation a polar ground station is an essential part of the operations. Sun synchronized orbital tracks converge at the polar caps and diverge at the equator. The higher the latitude of a ground station the more frequent line of sight can be established with the satellite. These contacts are utilized for tasking the satellite and down linking collected imagery from on-board memory. Relevant to potential revenues, satellite minute and imagery pricing depend on several factors such as percentage of ROI sought, period of recuperation, market competition, and labor and reference data for image processing. Moreover, there are other marketable values that add to the revenue of commercialization effort. These include sales of ground station, maintenance and technical support, training of technical and managerial personnel as well as sales or dispatch and installation services for critical and on-site spares.