The economics above the atmosphere
Small satellites, launch costs, in-orbit servicing and the buy-the-data-or-fly-the-hardware question, from the literature rather than the pitch deck.
10 works. Metadata and abstracts from OpenAlex, harvested 2026-08-26. We have not summarized, graded or characterized this research ourselves, and the abstracts below are the authors' own.
Modern Small Satellites-Changing the Economics of Space
Earth orbiting satellites come in a wide range of shapes and sizes to meet a diverse variety of uses and applications. Large satellites with masses over 1000 kg support high-resolution remote sensing of the Earth, high bandwidth communications services, and world-class scientific studies but take lengthy developments and are costly to build and launch. The advent of commercially available, high-volume, and hence low-cost microelectronics has enabled a different approach through miniaturization. This results in physically far smaller satellites that dramatically reduce timescales and costs and that are able to provide operational and commercially viable services. This paper charts the evolution and rise of small satellites from being an early curiosity with limited utility through to the present where small satellites are a key element of modern space capabilities.
A Techno-Economic Framework for Satellite Networks Applied to Low Earth Orbit Constellations: Assessing Starlink, OneWeb and Kuiper
Delivering broadband connectivity to unconnected areas is extremely challenging. The emergence of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite systems has been seen as a potential solution for connecting remote areas where engineering terrestrial infrastructure is prohibitively expensive to deploy. Despite the hype around these new technologies, we still lack an open-source modeling framework for assessing the techno-economics of satellite broadband connectivity which is therefore the purpose of this paper. Firstly, a generalizable techno-economic model is presented to assess the engineering-economics of satellite constellations. Secondly, the approach is applied to assess the three main competing LEO constellations which include Starlink, OneWeb and Kuiper. This involves simulating the impact on coverage, capacity and cost as both the number of satellites and quantity of subscribers increases...
Large Constellations of Small Satellites: A Survey of Near Future Challenges and Missions
Constellations of satellites are being proposed in large numbers; most of them are expected to be in orbit within the next decade. They will provide communication to unserved and underserved communities, enable global monitoring of Earth and enhance space observation. Mostly enabled by technology miniaturization, satellite constellations require a coordinated effort to face the technological limits in spacecraft operations and space traffic. At the moment in fact, no cost-effective infrastructure is available to withstand coordinated flight of large fleets of satellites. In order for large constellations to be sustainable, there is the need to efficiently integrate and use them in the current space framework. This review paper provides an overview of the available experience in constellation operations and statistical trends about upcoming constellations at the moment of writing. It...
Small satellites for space science
This is a COSPAR roadmap to advance the frontiers of science through innovation and international collaboration using small satellites. The world of small satellites is evolving quickly and an opportunity exists to leverage these developments to make scientific progress. In particular, the increasing availability of low-cost launch and commercially available hardware provides an opportunity to reduce the overall cost of science missions. This in turn should increase flight rates and encourage scientists to propose more innovative concepts, leading to scientific breakthroughs. Moreover, new computer technologies and methods are changing the way data are acquired, managed, and processed. The large data sets enabled by small satellites will require a new paradigm for scientific data analysis. In this roadmap we provide several examples of long-term scientific visions that could be enabled...
Status and Trends of Smallsats and their Launch Vehicles , An Up-to-date Review
This paper presents an analysis of the scenario of small satellites and its correspondent launch vehicles. The miniaturization of electronics, together with reliability and performance increase as well as reduction of cost, have allowed the use of commercials-off-the-shelf in the space industry, fostering the Smallsat use. An analysis of the launched Smallsats during the last 20 years is accomplished and the main factors for the Smallsat (r)evolution, outlined. Based on historic data, future scenarios for different mass categories of Smallsats are presented. An analysis of current and future launch vehicles reveals that we are currently in a phase of transition, where old launch vehicles get retired and new ones enter the market. However, the satellite launch vehicle business has been established to carry payloads of thousands of kilos into low Earth orbit and has not adjusted itself to...
A Comprehensive Review on Small Satellite Microgrids
The small satellite (SmallSat) industry has recorded incredible growth recently. Within this class, among mini-, micro-, and nanosatellites, the cube satellite (CubeSat) is primed for an explosion of growth. These satellites are fascinating for remote sensing, Earth observation, and scientific applications. Remarkable attention from the space operators makes it valuable because of its low cost, cubic shape, less manufacturing time, lightweight, and modular structure. Among the various subsystems comprising the SmallSat, the electrical power system (EPS) is the most crucial one because unreliable power supply to the rest is most of the time detrimental to the mission. The EPS is formed by electrical sources, storage units, and loads, all interconnected via different power converters, the operation of which must be closely orchestrated to accomplish efficient use of photovoltaic power...
Optimal Pricing of Local Telephone Service
Although payment for nearly all other goods and services, including toll (long distance) telephone calls, increases with greater consumption, nearly 90 percent of the residential telephone subscribers and more than half the business subscribers in the United States now pay a flat monthly rate for local calls (see Larry Garfinkel). Recently, however, the telephone companies and regulatory commissions have been moving cautiously toward imposing usage charges for local telephone calls. There is renewed interest in what is currently termed pricingt (USP). It is due to the combined forces of inflation, increased local usage, and competition from independent firms that sell telephone terminal equipment and supply private toll lines to business customers. Under USP, the of such services as telephone installation, directory assistance, and minutes of calling is based on incremental rather than...
Double Auction Mechanism for Resource Allocation in Satellite MEC
With the rapid popularity of IoT devices and smart city technologies, mobile edge computing considered as a promising technology appears, which can support real-time applications at the edge of the network. In this paper, we focus on the auction mechanism in mobile edge computing to allocate resources between IoT devices regarded as buyers and edge servers regarded as sellers and establish a two-sided relationship based on network economics to depict the process of resource allocation. Next, two double auction mechanisms named TMF and EMF are proposed, which aim at optimizing the rationality of resource allocation by considering successful trades and social welfare. Both TMF and EMF are applied to the scenario that each seller services to multi-buyers and each buyer also requests for multi-sellers with different sizes of resources requirements. The TMF mechanism we proposed is a...
Cost estimating of commercial smallsat launch vehicles
A Historical Review of China-U.S. Cooperation in Space: Launching Commercial Satellites and Technology Transfer, 1978-2000
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