It’s a new year with new challenges and milestones for the commercial space industry. We have many launches slated for the year, on existing and new launch vehicles, for many returning customers and innovative first-timers. But what else is on the horizon? We asked some of our friends and industry watchers what they think this year has in store, and here are a few highlights:
“We live in an exciting era of sweeping change in the spaceflight industry. I think we will continue to see innovation largely driven by the commercial sector, both in terms of reusable launch as well as some of the first private space tourism flights. We may see some innovative commercial science missions, as well.”
– Eric Berger, Senior Editor at Ars Technica
“We will see 50 or more seed-stage companies raise outside capital in 2018.”
– Joe Landon, Chairman, Space Angels
“Failure of one or more small launch vehicle startups due to technical problems and/or a lack of funding.”
– Jeff Foust, Senior Writer, Space News
“We go back to the Moon.”
– Cristian Miuta, CMIUTA Electric Company
“Smallsat will start to over take regular satellites in construction and launches. On demand launches will be the new milestone for the industry.”
– Brian Stofiel, Stofiel Aerospace
We also have some predictions from our own team:
“A new record will be set for satellites deployed on a single launch.”
– Curt Blake, President of Spaceflight
“Investment into IoT constellations overtakes Earth imaging investment as the next big thing.”
– Phil Brzytwa, Director of Business Development, Spaceflight
“With the promise of heavier payload shipments to space at a fraction of the cost, we will see growth in requests for manufacturing and energy harnessing hardware shipments into space from the commercial space industry.”
– Sam Sargent, Manager of Business Development, Spaceflight
“First flights for Falcon Heavy, Crew Dragon, Electron, and LauncherOne with partial successes, Lunar Xprize will be awarded but with little fanfare, and a satellite collision occurs. India opens PSLV to external buyers, N. Korea sends rocket to waters off Alaska and shot down by Patriot missiles, and Trump declares moon mission with no increased budget.”
– Drew Hess, Mission Development Manager, Spaceflight Industries
“More launches than we’ve ever seen before! And more access to space for everyone!”
– Annie Bader, Mission Manager, Spaceflight
“ROI viability for GEOINT in the commercial sector.”
– John Ohlinger, Manager of Commercial Programs, BlackSky
“We will discover colonies of feral cats on another planet.”
– Miles Atherly, Senior Engineer of Space Operations, Spaceflight
Have your own? Tweet us at @SpaceflightInc.