Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BMOM (Business Model for Orbital Maneuvering kit)
Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-04-30
An ElectroDynamic Tether (EDT) is a long conductor, typically a tape of aluminium, attached to a spacecraft that carries an electric current and exchanges momentum with the Earth magnetosphere. In particular, the interaction between the current and the Earth magnetic field generates a Lorentz drag force on the tape that deorbits the spacecraft without using propellant. The FET project 828902 with acronym E.T.PACK is developing a Deorbit Kit (DK) that will be bolt on to satellites and activated at the end-of-life for post mission disposal. The DK is a novel promising solution to mitigate the space debris proliferation problem. The goal of BMOM project was to prepare a business model for the DK in order to turn the flagship results of E.T.PACK into a genuine innovative product. Besides activities on market analysis and competitiveness assessments, BMOM’s dissemination plan included meetings with potential investors, customers, and public bodies in order to create the conditions to accelerate the development and the future commercialization of the DK and the EDT mission analysis software BETsMA v2.0.
The 5 BMOM objectives were:
O1. Perform a market analysis for the DK and BETsMA.
O2. Define the most important use cases.
O3 Address the industrial needs and cost to reach a commercial product.
O4 Validate the DK use cases with respect to competitors.
O5 Provide financial indicators of the identified business for the DK and BETsMA.
All the objectives of the BMOM study were fulfilled bringing outstanding results beyond initial expectations.
The 5 BMOM objectives were:
O1. Perform a market analysis for the DK and BETsMA.
O2. Define the most important use cases.
O3 Address the industrial needs and cost to reach a commercial product.
O4 Validate the DK use cases with respect to competitors.
O5 Provide financial indicators of the identified business for the DK and BETsMA.
All the objectives of the BMOM study were fulfilled bringing outstanding results beyond initial expectations.
The management of the project was carried out by SENER AE smoothly with no mayor issues. The BMOM team was very active in the dissemination task. In term of public outreach, a special section about the BMOM project was created in the web site of E.T.PACK and a continuous presence in the media was maintained with appearance on Spanish national radio (RNE, Radio Euskadi) , newspaper (ABC, El Español) and television (La 1). UC3M maintained a close coordination with the E.T.PACK project providing relevant information during the weekly project meeting, ensuring that the latest information on the E.T.PACK development was available for the BMOM study.
Euroconsult performed a detailed analysis of the emerging orbital debris mitigation market with focus on Low Earth Orbit satellites up to 1200km. In particular satellites and launchers market were investigated and the number of potential customers were identified. The most promising market resulted to be the one of the small launchers being RFA the most interesting customer. This result reinforced the partnership with the German launch service provider that brought to the successful proposal of ETPACK-F. Euroconsult defined three use case scenarios using SENER and UC3M inputs and developed a business case for each of them providing financial indicators that indicate the commercial viability of the DK. The work included the deorbit, insurance and propulsion markets. Euroconsult analysed the commercial exploitation of the BETsMA v2.0 software providing valuables suggestion of cross marketing in combination with the DK product. On the technical side, SENER reviewed the E.T.PACK design and identified upgrades to increase the DK versatility. SENER provided an integrated development approach for accessing sequentially 3 markets: the deorbit market, the insurance/propulsion market and the IoS market. For each market, the cost and benefit indicators are provided under optimistic and pessimistic assumptions. SENER also reviewed deeply all the DK IPR and propose a scheme to define how to transfer all the exploitation right to a single entity, being SENER AE or a new start-up. During the full activity UC3M supported the definition of the DK use cases providing assessment on the tether applications including deorbit, station keeping and re-boost. For this the BETsMA software was modified. UC3M estimated the different scenario performance with simulations providing the main technical tether sizing data for each case. UC3M performed a benchmarking of the DK performances against other technologies. This analysis of the competitors was very helpful to identify the strengths and weakness of the DK. The analysis considered 12 criterion or characteristics that any deorbit technology should fulfil. The analysis of the software BETsMA as a future product was also carried out. Information was collected about other tether software around the world a brief market analysis was carried out by UC3M. Such analysis was extended deeply by Euroconsult and a roadmap towards the commercialization of the software was prepared. An important achievement for the software has been its use for the study of the use case proposed by several potential customers. Such activity gave visibility to the software and will also help the team to attract the attention of other companies.
Euroconsult performed a detailed analysis of the emerging orbital debris mitigation market with focus on Low Earth Orbit satellites up to 1200km. In particular satellites and launchers market were investigated and the number of potential customers were identified. The most promising market resulted to be the one of the small launchers being RFA the most interesting customer. This result reinforced the partnership with the German launch service provider that brought to the successful proposal of ETPACK-F. Euroconsult defined three use case scenarios using SENER and UC3M inputs and developed a business case for each of them providing financial indicators that indicate the commercial viability of the DK. The work included the deorbit, insurance and propulsion markets. Euroconsult analysed the commercial exploitation of the BETsMA v2.0 software providing valuables suggestion of cross marketing in combination with the DK product. On the technical side, SENER reviewed the E.T.PACK design and identified upgrades to increase the DK versatility. SENER provided an integrated development approach for accessing sequentially 3 markets: the deorbit market, the insurance/propulsion market and the IoS market. For each market, the cost and benefit indicators are provided under optimistic and pessimistic assumptions. SENER also reviewed deeply all the DK IPR and propose a scheme to define how to transfer all the exploitation right to a single entity, being SENER AE or a new start-up. During the full activity UC3M supported the definition of the DK use cases providing assessment on the tether applications including deorbit, station keeping and re-boost. For this the BETsMA software was modified. UC3M estimated the different scenario performance with simulations providing the main technical tether sizing data for each case. UC3M performed a benchmarking of the DK performances against other technologies. This analysis of the competitors was very helpful to identify the strengths and weakness of the DK. The analysis considered 12 criterion or characteristics that any deorbit technology should fulfil. The analysis of the software BETsMA as a future product was also carried out. Information was collected about other tether software around the world a brief market analysis was carried out by UC3M. Such analysis was extended deeply by Euroconsult and a roadmap towards the commercialization of the software was prepared. An important achievement for the software has been its use for the study of the use case proposed by several potential customers. Such activity gave visibility to the software and will also help the team to attract the attention of other companies.
BMOM played a key role to understand the market and focus the development towards a family of products. The electrodynamic tether technology products will access different markets at different times in an incremental approach. BMOM was also critical to direct the E.T.PACK development towards the most mature use case: deorbit launcher upper stages. Regarding space debris, the potential impact is very high since DK can break the actual vicious circle, where a tough legal framework for deorbiting is not developed because deorbiting with conventional technologies would ruin the competitiveness of the European industry. There are only international guidelines and just specific actors, like ESA, have more strict regulations related to post-mission disposal. DK can trigger a new regulation that will force companies to deorbit at end-of-life, and they can open a new market of deorbiting technologies. Besides such an important socio-economic impact related to space debris and the sustainable use of the outer space, BMOM contributed to the definition of a new family of products based on electrodynamic tethers that could revolutionaries the space mobility. DK is a recurrent, high-tech, and high-quality disrupting product and will have an important impact in terms of creation of highly qualified jobs in the long term. BMOM provided a very accurate market assessment optimizing market success of EDTs globally. Such approach will not only optimize European satellite industry’s competitiveness on the global market, but it will also increase the availability of a product aiming to make space activities sustainable. BMOM project was of critical importance in the understanding of the market and to get a first approach to the potential customers. Thanks to the BMOM project an important dissemination campaign about the Deorbit Device product and the software BETsMA v2.0 has been carried out during the last year. One of the most important activities was the organization of the dedicated workshop “Propellant-less Orbital Mobility Device” during the World Satellite Business Week 2021 in Paris. The team invited a total of 54 potential end user and investors. The distribution list was prepared by combining the databases of SENER and Euroconsult. During the workshop the team got assistance to both passes organized in the morning and started conversation with potential customers interested in a solution for the insurance and In Orbit Servicing market.