It’s a New Space Age for Satellite Builders

The space age is getting crowded. A wave of commercial entities—perhaps best exemplified by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX—has transformed the industry, making it cheaper and easier to get into space. The umbrella term “New Space” has been coined to describe the approach taken by these companies. Patrick Wood, chief executive of Surrey Satellite Technologies Ltd., or SSTL, sees his company as one of the pioneers of the New Space movement. The British company, which was spun out of the University of Surrey in 1985, designs, manufactures and operates small satellites, which typically weigh less than 1,100 pounds, for customers in a number of areas, from military to navigation and telecommunications. The company can also manufacture technology and subsystems that customers can integrate into their own satellites, to gather data, for example. More

(Source: Wall Street Journal - Oct 3)