Suri was speaking at the Nasscom Technology and Leadership Forum 2022 on Friday.
Capacity will “skyrocket” and
it is estimated that the sector will grow by 10-20x from 2020 to 2025, he added.
“Money is coming into the space sector quite fast,” Suri said. “Venture capital coming into space companies in 2021 was the fastest ever at $70.1 billion. That is close to a 90% increase from the previous record just a year before. If you assume that growth continues five years after that, which I believe it will, the outcome will be a radical leap from where we are today.”
He said that new entrants like Starlink and Amazon will also drive change and will look to capture existing players and build new markets of satellite communications.
There will also be greater consolidation down the road, he added.
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“There are currently more than 50 active satellite communications operators, and I would bet that there will be far less than half of that number, in just a decade from now,” he said. “And then technological innovation will accelerate driven by the new capital and that innovation will be seen not just in the space sector but on the ground as well with better, faster and cheaper terminals.”
He also said space-based communications will be one of the most interesting, most dynamic sectors of the Techade.
“We believe that the combination of GEO (Geostationary orbit), HEO (High Earth Orbit satellites), LEO (Low-Earth-orbit satellites) and 5G is the best approach,” he said. “We also wanted to have 5G for some hotspots around the world such as maritime and aviation. Think about the Singapore Straits, it’s very busy and so we think terrestrial 5G can actually help offload traffic.”
Suri, however, warned that the overcrowding of satellites may lead to Kessler Syndrome where satellites can crash into each other.
The Kessler Syndrome is a phenomenon in which the amount of junk in orbit around the earth reaches a point where it just creates more and more space debris, causing big problems for satellites, astronauts and mission planners.
