Lockheed Martin’s space business has undergone a significant amount of restructuring over recent years, consolidating its operations in Denver and streamlining its workforce in response to the fall in US government spending and an increasingly demanding and price competitive commercial market. Central to the company’s future growth strategy has been the comprehensive redesign of its flagship A2100 spacecraft platform. Carl Marchetto, VP & GM of commercial space at Lockheed, speaks to SatelliteFinance about how the company approached the redesign and the impact it will have.
Lockheed Martin’s space business has undergone a significant amount of restructuring over recent years, consolidating its operations in Denver and streamlining its workforce in response to the fall in US government spending and an increasingly demanding and price competitive commercial market. Central to the company’s future growth strategy has been the comprehensive redesign of its flagship A2100 spacecraft platform. Carl Marchetto, VP & GM of commercial space at Lockheed, speaks to SatelliteFinance about how the company approached the redesign and the impact it will have.
Ed Ansell: You have significantly redesigned the A2100 satellite platform – what were the main changes you implemented?
Carl Marchetto: The A2100’s design heritage is almost 20 years old. When Lockheed Martin started to look at the redesign and the new set of requirements, we looked at the cycle time it takes to build the satellite, its cost and the performance.
We have tried to come up with an intelligent, scalable approach to design an architecture that will satisfy enterprise needs. With that comes scale in your supply chain – buying the same components and interfaces and using the same test methodologies. We are more than just a commercial satellite provider and that helps us with the way we want to run the factory. I don’t have a quotient like some companies where if they don’t get a certain number of orders they are running inefficiently. We are going to fill our factory with demands from many customers – commercial, civil, military – based on the same design.
EA: How has the redesign affected your pricing? Did this have an impact on Lockheed in the past?
CM: It was the call to action when we designed this. It was not just a technological advance, it had to be a cost advantage and a schedule advantage. This is a holistic view of what would be good for the market. How do we get back and engage with them? We have kind of been on the side-lines for the last four years. Now we are invested.
We’ve got our hardware built, we’re getting through the qualification programme, we have our first customer – all of that was architected from the beginning. This wasn’t just ‘get me better technology and I’ll find out the cost later’. It was 35% cost take out and 25% schedule take out.
EA: So in terms of your new schedule, what is the manufacturing time frame compared to previously?
CM: We’re not at under two years but can we get there? Yes. Internally, we are striving for 18 months.
The A2100 architecture spans two different buses – a medium power and high power. One is nothing more than longer than the other, that’s how simple this is. Some of the features on the medium are exactly the same as the HP. This gives us great confidence in the quality and qualification of the product.
The propulsion system has also been drastically streamlined. We have these two new modes of propulsion, we always had chemical, we now have the hybrid and all-electric.
We have unique shaped reflectors and a brand new solar array that looks like an accordion and folds up into a small pack. That enables it to be a lighter weight and have less of a footprint to mount it on the satellite.
As such, we can offer two satellites side-by-side. And we think that this is a breakthrough in terms of the launch cost. If satellites are vertically stacked the satellite in the lower position is going to be compromised. By making the satellites narrower through the solar array design, there does not need to be a compromise. The side-by-side also works with all the major launch services providers.
EA: How has the market reacted to the redesign, with its the new pricing and capabilities?
CM: As you can see in the recent sale to Arabsat, the market sees our progression. There have been a lot of questions. Rather than coming out with a brand new satellite, this is really more a generational upgrade and when people look at the product they’ve said, ‘you got it, this is really the next enhancement to what you have previously done, which we already liked. You’ve taken cost out, you’ve taken mass out and it’s just smarter’.
EA: As you mentioned, the first order for the new A2100 platform is with Arabsat and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST). What does it comprise?
CM: That deal was very interesting. It was for two satellites – Arabsat-6a and Hellas-Sat-4 / SaudiGeoSat-1, which has both commercial and military applications. The latter has one payload – they are not physically separate but the bands come out in separate antennas.
The satellite has a flexible payload and a hybrid system, using chemical for orbit raising and electric propulsion for station keeping. People realised that in some markets, satellites need to get to orbit quicker than an all-electric would take them.
EA: But a hybrid offering, while having a quicker orbit raise, will lose the weight benefits of an all-electric. Have you found a line where you think the trade-off works best?
CM: Absolutely. We know where the break points are. The trade-off is the longer the transfer orbit you have the more operational costs you have.
EA: So do you think the hybrid is the most attractive option to operators?
CM: No, the most attractive offering I believe will be all-electric but can we improve the all-electric to shorten the time to orbit..?
EA: Is that happening and how long will it take to make it more competitive with regards to orbital transfer?
CM: We’re trying to improve ours, but I don’t know the time frame as we use a sub-contractor which is used by most of our competitors.
What’s really neat about our approach with the redesigned A2100 is that we are able to fire all four Hall Current Thrusters (HCTs) at once. Most architectures we’ve seen in the past would fire two on diagonals. Why? Because their existing power systems couldn’t handle the number of kilowatts in transfer orbit. We’ve designed ours from the get go to fire four, meaning we can transfer quicker than anybody else, in about four months.
EA: From a purely commercial aspect, is the time to orbit the only reason why all-electrics orders haven’t taken off?
CM: It’s an economic factor. Our customers talk about this all the time. Apparently the time to get to station requires a significant cost, I’ve heard some manufacturers talk about orbit raising for 6-9 months.
EA: Lockheed started a period of major restructuring a couple of years ago, is that all complete now in terms of the space side?
CM: It is done. The facility has been sold, we have transitioned the people. Everything is now in Denver. This means our talent pool, our corporate knowledge, is all in one spot. Although it was rather an efficient facility in Newtown, Pennsylvania, it was only commercial. Now we are going to move enterprise thinking to Denver. We’re thinking beyond working in silos to one organisation in manufacturing that will handle all sorts of customers needs with these standard designs and the modernised A2100.
EA: Lockheed has admitted that the current closure of the US Export Import Bank is having an effect on your bidding for business, do you feel you have lost contracts because of the lack of Ex-Im. And how close are you to working with alternative export credit agencies?
CM: We had one where they had already repositioned themselves knowing that Ex-Im was going to be out of commission for a while. Some customers have worked around it on their own. But we have to look at all the range of possibilities.
Yes we absolutely have had discussions with alternatives ECAs, such as Export Development Canada. We have reached out to that particular vehicle as we have a big footprint in Canada.
EA: Following the demise of Australian satellite operator NewSat, Lockheed now owns the Ka-band satellite, called Jabiru-1, which it was building for the project. How is the sales process for the spacecraft coming along? Is there any time pressure to sell it?
CM: We gave the satellite a new name, Lockheed Martin Flexsat, and we’ve had meetings with more than 14 operators regarding it. There is no time pressure, we are just trying to find the right partner for that satellite.
In our meetings, the satellite operator would come in and we prepare them with what the satellite can do and what it was designed for. And many have asked us: ‘We have this slot, what can we do with that existing design or with minor mods to get it to work in that spot?’ And that process is still ongoing.
EA: How long would it take to modify the satellite for a select operator?
CM: The satellite is around 70% built so it is not a complete satellite but it is far along. It is already configured – the reflectors, the beams, the frequencies have all been set. But there is some pretty creative architecture that the operators are looking at to repurpose it.
EA: While there is no time pressure, is there a point at which you will want to make a decision on it?
CM: I think this will be in someone else’s stable and we will have a contract in six months. That is my guess. It really goes back to cycle time, with zero to minor modifications this could be ready for launch in 12 to 14 months. There’s a lot of interest for that.
EA: You have said that it is important for Lockheed to be involved in the rise in demand for LEO constellations. How is that going to happen? Do you currently have the capability, and have you been in negotiations with anyone?
CM: We have some intellectual property that has already flown in a civil mission that one of the LEO constellation people really like. It is a very interesting design, you can stack a mass of them up and launch them and they erect themselves when released.
We have been involved and are currently involved with OneWeb. Their interest caused us to look at some processes radically differently, how do you build a power system one tenth the price? They are also very interested in our solar array technology.
My view is that these systems and ideas will continue to mature. We will be alongside them and someday we will be involved. We have been in the past when we built the first Iridium constellation and that educated us quite a bit as it was a production line.
EA: Would you have to build a new factory to support this?
CM: No, we might cordon off an area in our Denver production facility and organise it differently so it is more like a production line. Or use one of our other facilities such as the one we have in Florida.
EA: Airbus’ plan for OneWeb is to build something like 2.6 satellites a day by utilising methods from their aircraft manufacturing. Is that feasible?
CM: I think we built five Iridium satellites a week. It was a production line. It is the same in consumer electronics – a production line where if there is any deviation you take it out of line and you keep going. And you fix the issue in a different path.
