Is the key to low-cost commercial space, the market is commercial space boosters

The author: Institute CEO Yang Feng-day instrument

Edit: Shi Yaqiong

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Commercial aerospace is not familiar to the general public because it looks “high on the ground” and “ungrounded,” Therefore, the outside world often has various misunderstandings about this industry. question. I put all kinds of common misunderstandings and doubts, into a FAQ for your reference.

Question 1: Cubesat has a weak life expectancy and true commercial satellites are at least 50 kilograms

This kind of questioning is quite helpless, but cubesat has made so much contribution to aerospace and promoted so many advances in aerospace. It has become the mainstream product of the international commercial market, and has entered the mainstream voice of the international top conference. Several unicorns and quasi-unicorns came out. NASA’s cubesat has gone to Mars. Now it’s 9012, and there is such a voice, helpless.

(1) Let me talk about the first misunderstanding of cubesat, not reliable, and short life.

To be honest, from the state statistics of all cubesat in history, this is true. More than a thousand cubesat have more than a quarter of them going up in a few days, and only a quarter of them have achieved complete success. Does this question seem to be particularly data-driven?

潮科技| The ability of the cubic star is weak? Is the experimental star because of poor ability? Here is a different opinion

Now let’s look at the other side of the same set of statistics.

潮科技| The ability of the cubic star is weak? Is the experimental star because of poor ability? Here is a different opinion

There are more than 1,000 satellites launched by 253 organizations, and as many as 146 organizations have only launched one satellite, and they have never sent it.After that, most of the big enough failure data was contributed by these 146 institutions. The following organizations that have issued more than a dozen, twenty to several hundred, occupy most of the data for success.

According to the original report: It’s Hard to Improve, When You Don’t Repeat!

So it’s not a cubic star that doesn’t depend on it. Cubic stars are doing reliability growth in constant failures and iterations. As long as they have been tried many times, low-cost cubic stars can also last a long time. The cubic star launched by Europe’s leading Delft University of Technology on a small satellite ten years ago is still alive. Let’s take a look at the front 355 star planet, the 99 star spire, which has become a unicorn in the aerospace field, enabling a closed loop of commercial applications. Our celestial instruments are placed in the world’s data, and they are also ranked top, happy.

(Note: Sources of this chapter: Michael Swartwout, PhD. Parks College of Engineering, Aviation & Technology Saint Louis University. CubeSat Developers’ Workshop 23 April 2019)

(2) The argument that the ability of the cubic star is weak is also debatable.

In addition to the weight of the satellite, there are very many indicators, which are by no means simple. The heavier the satellite, the stronger the ability. If it is just an indicator of weight, take a 10 kilogram small satellite plus 1 ton of iron weight, which is also a large one-tonne satellite, but does such a satellite have any meaning? It is not enough to emphasize the weight of the big satellite. You have to come up with the indicators of the big satellite.

The same indicator, the smaller the satellite is, the harder it is. The 0.5-meter-resolution remote sensing is made with a 500-kilogram whole star, but it is very remarkable to make it with 50 kilograms. If it can be made with 10 kilograms, it is the highest level. For the same reason, refer to the computer industry, I really don’t want to go into details here.

Now China’s cubic stars are indeed weak in function, mainly because China’s cubic stars started relatively late. Although there are already many developers of cubic stars, we are still very scarce in the development of miniaturized, high-index loads. This also brings about the status quo of the whole star ability is not strong. So it’s not a cubic star, it’s our cubic star.Technology is not good.

(3) It must be added that the cubic star is not space junk.

The current international and domestic requirements are that all low-orbit small satellites, including the cubic stars, must have the ability to actively derail, in order to allow launch.

At the end of the day, Tianyi is currently developing the 150-kilogram satellite. Although it is extremely technically difficult and complicated, we have extensively used the experience and lessons learned from the past ten or so cubic stars. We have used a lot of on-orbit verification of mature industrial-grade components and a robust software system, so we can make this star so small, so fast and so cheap.

Question 2: Teams with poor ability are the test stars; teams with strong capabilities are doing business stars

This bit is powerless.

(1) The new technology test is a major business of Tianyi. This is the type of business of satellites. It is not the development stage of satellites. It has nothing to do with the strength of technology. Please don’t confuse the concept. Each of our test stars must carry up to 4-5 scientific research loads, and serve and meet the requirements of all customers. The difficulty and complexity of design is not comparable to the so-called business with single function. This is stronger. reflect.

(2) Even in the development stage, the debate between the test star and the business star is a topic of ten years ago in foreign countries, but unfortunately it is now in China, and some people are talking about this old topic. New Space adheres to the “small step run”, using the rapid and low cost of the test star to carry out a large number of on-orbit testing, accumulating technology, and gradually developing applications. This process can boldly try various new technologies and new ideas because there is no pressure to ensure success. It is convenient to quickly complete the accumulation of autonomy. The “business star” of the application in one step, of course, is not bad, but the pressure to ensure success will inevitably take the old road and rely on the traditional supply chain. Moreover, the aerospace is naturally conservative. Once the technical route is determined, the changes are difficult and return to the path of the original old space.

(3) If the goal is high enough, it will always be a test star, not a shame; if the goal is low enough, each is a business star, meaningless. Here you can refer to the example that the Internet product is always a beta version.

Question 3: The satellites of Tianyi have failed several times, and there are still many problems, especially not reliable

About Tianyi itself, in fact, there are many questions from the outside world.

The New Space culture represented by SpaceX is a concept of rapid iteration in failure, and is very different from old space. SpaceX is the most successful rocket company and it is also a failureThe company with the most number of times. In the case of satellites, New Space’s representative planet is also the ultimate in not being afraid of failure. Failure is not shameful, and it is shameful without progress.

For the advantages of New Space over old space, I have summarized the data in many papers and reports at home and abroad, and drew such three pictures:

潮科技| The ability of the cubic star is weak? Is the experimental star because of poor ability? Here is a different opinion

New Space’s style of play is: at the beginning, sacrificing reliability and performance for low cost and new technology innovations, performance and cost will be significantly higher than traditional models over time, and reliability is also unlimited Close to the original level.

For the “failure” data of Tianyi, I can officially announce it, let us talk about the facts.

The first satellite, Xiaoxiang No.1, lost track in orbit for less than one month. Reason: The development time is too short, the cost is too low, the software test is too inadequate, and the experience of small satellite development is insufficient;

The 2nd star, Chen Jiayu No.1, this is our cooperation with foreign teams, and can not fully reflect our level, not counting statistics;

The 3rd and 4th satellites, one of which lost ground in less than half a year after running on track, the reason: I hope to fully exploit the upper limit of satellite capacity in the orbit, and excessive testing leads to loss of connection. The other one has been working normally until now, and it has been 1 year and 8 months;

The 5th – 13th, all satellites have been in normal operation so far, and two satellites have completed their tasks without completing the tasks. For a series of problems discovered when some satellites have just entered the track, we will successfully solve the problems in the subsequent tests and upgrades, and in the next launch, upgrade the performance of the next batch of satellites;

The 14th satellite is currently in full state of expectations, but it is still the third day. Although we are very confident, we can not count the statistics.

There are a total of 12 satellites counted in the statistics, according to the previous success criteria:

  • 1 early loss 8.33%

  • 3 partial mission 25%

  • 8 Full mission 66.7%

This data far exceeds the international average. At the same time, our problem data is in the early stage of the satellite, and now our satellites are 100% full mission.

The data of Tianyi has been announced, and interested friends can also publish their own real data.

Question 4: The core competitiveness of commercial aerospace companies is technology, talent, capital, resources

Speaking of core competitiveness, everyone will think about technology, talent, capital, resources and so on. In all aspects, we are working hard. I won’t go into details here.

However! This is not the core competency I want.

Once I attended a meeting, the host asked me which of the four things was the most important. My answer is very important, but I think it is more important to be “cognitive” about the industry. At that time, the host was ridiculed as “metaphysics.” I don’t think this is metaphysics, and I have two examples.

The first example is comet. For the comet at that time, the technical talent resources were No.1 in the world. Why did it finally go bankrupt? Before the opening of commercial aerospace in China, the resources of technical personnel raised by a listed company to engage in satellites at that time were the top in China. Now?

The second example is Skybox and planet. Skybox is the top technology, top talent, unlimited acquisition of funds by google, and natural resources. In the early days of the planet, the planet is not as good as Skybox in any indicator. But in this case, after a few more years, Google invested in the planet, and in this round, planet acquired Skybox from Google. This is why? Why is the planet that can’t do it laugh at the end?

“Cognition” is a strategic level. If you are in the wrong direction, the more resources you have for technical talents, the more you will go further and further on the wrong path. The same is true for Tianyi. I think that the core competitiveness of Tianyi is actually our team’s understanding of China’s commercial aerospace at this stage and its accurate positioning. I also hope that this core competitiveness can continue in the future. keep it up.

So what is the positioning of the instrument? Tianyi’s early positioning was “Scientific Experiment and Technical Verification Service”, which featured different characteristics from the national team. Nine words, “short cycle, low cost, one stop”, in front of me As already said, this positioning is very accurate, which is why we have been so fast in the past few years.

The positioning of Tianyi has not changed, just in the “scientificOn the basis of the inspection and technical verification service, it is further enlarged. The positioning of Tianyi is now, “Micro Satellite Constellation Solution”, we will build various types of micro satellite constellations together with the load developer and application operators. Become a powerful complement to China’s space.

Without the Moore’s Law of the PC and the development of the software industry, there will be no Internet; without the emergence of smartphones and 4G, there will be no mobile Internet; likewise, if we can’t take the satellite Moore now The law will run out, and the satellites will not be able to achieve 10 times higher functionality, 10% lower cost, and hundreds of thousands of small satellites.