Survey: DOD drives satellite market

The Defense Department will remain the primary target for new satellite products and services, according to an annual satellite industry survey conducted during the International Satellite Communications exchange.

Despite the focus on DOD, 5 percent of the respondents said they are planning to increase their solutions targeting the Homeland Security Department and public safety and first responders.

Hannover Fairs USA Inc. and Futron Corp. produced the survey. Futron conducted the survey with questions were targeted specifically at military and other government attendees and commercial industry representatives.

Most commercial attendees said their businesses are heavily dominated by government work, but will move to a more balanced portfolio of government and nongovernment use over the next two to three years.

Commercial attendees also projected that DOD will remain their primary target for new products and services. And, twice as many respondents as last year project software to be their big driver of new business.

For the military respondents, most said the launch of new military satellites will not impact their use of commercial communications satellites. More than 20 percent projected that commercial usage will decline by 25 percent or more.

Other findings from military respondents were:

• Although 70 percent said the availability of appropriate space segment is the government's greatest challenge in using commercial satellites, 30 percent saw availability of ground terminals as even more of a challenge in utilizing commercial bandwidth.
  
• Military and government attendees gave the commercial satellite industry good grades on understanding and meeting government needs. More than 85 percent reported that commercial vendors meet their needs in a timely manner always or most of the time, while 76 percent responded that industry understands their service and procurement requirements.