DESCRIPTION

“Microsatellites aren’t just for science anymore,” explains David Cooper, President and CEO of MSCI.

“With the development of our Multi Mission Microsatellite Bus, we have standardized the architecture for a microsatellite and developed the Commercial Microsatellite Bus (CMB). This standard design allows us to lower costs significantly, which means solving a commercial need for distributing or collecting data over a wide geographic area may be more cost effective now from space than with terrestrial assets.”

MSCI is the founding company of COMMStellation™ - a consortium of companies formed to build and deploy a constellation of low earth orbit (LEO) microsatellites to address global backhaul and connectivity for commercial markets.

The Challenge

Commercial companies that collect or distribute data across a wide geographic area from or to their customers all have a common problem – what infrastructure to use. Traditionally, companies used hard ground assets – rail lines, phone lines, undersea cables, fibre optic cables – which are expensive but necessary. Since the sixties, satellites have played their role in reaching customers where ground infrastructure was not available, or impracticable, but these assets are expensive to build, maintain and use.

The Solution

MSCI has changed this market dynamic. With the development of MSCI’s standard Multi Mission Microsatellite Bus (MMMB), we offer the ability to field a microsatellite, or constellation of microsatellites, to meet global real-time data collection or distribution at a surprisingly cost-effective price. Leveraging our flight heritage in the civil and military sectors, MSCI can now also design and build cost effective microsatellites for commercial applications, providing a new market with access to traditionally cost-prohibitive services, enabling new customers to pass on value-adds and savings to their customers.

BENEFITS

• More Capability - MSCI’s use of carefully-screened and radiation-tested commercial components allows us to capitalize on the latest available technology. We can pack more capability into a microsatellite mass and volume – more on-board processing, bandwidth and memory. Data processing that previously required ground station processing, or bigger satellites, can now be done on the microsatellites. As a result, ground stations no longer need to be as complex or expensive to run, saving on infrastructure costs.

• Flexibility and Scalability - MSCI’s MMMB architecture is designed to partition bus and payload subsystems. Key subsystems – such as power, attitude control system and communications – are now modular, enabling them to scale up or down to accommodate a wide range of payloads – optical or electronic surveillance, multi-spectral sensing, communications and so on.

• Cost Effectiveness – In comparison to installing fixed ground assets, a microsatellite solution can be very cost effective. Lets face it – if it isn’t cheaper why would you want it? We are in the space business, not you. Let us design a cost-effective solution to service your current customers with current or expanded services, or capture new customers, all at lower cost.

• Shorter Implementation Schedules – First to market can be everything. The MSCI microsatellite standard spacecraft is designed to get capability in space faster and cheaper. The MSCI MMMB approach changes the normal space paradigm of long implementation schedules. We can prepare a microsatellite for deployment in as little as twelve months.

• Reliability – Do any of these cost-effective innovations come at a price in quality? No. MSCI has a solid track record of building microsatellites that last. Visit our MOST section for proof.

Like to know more? Please contact us at info@mscinc.ca