As seen in Electronics Sourcing:
The commercial New Space market is growing rapidly with significant potential for component, module and subsystem manufacturers. According to a World Economic Forum and McKinsey 2024 report, the global space economy is projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035.
The Satellite Industry Association reported a record 2,781 commercial satellites deployed with 190 space industry launches in 2023. By the end of that year, 9,691 active satellites were in orbit supporting remote sensing, connectivity and communications, data collection and navigation applications.
Most space industry activity is in the American market, which accounted for 85 percent of 2023’s commercial satellite launches. Global manufacturers have much to gain from launching their technology spaceward but face unique headwinds breaking into the American market.
Commercial New Space programs have changed the production model around space and satellite applications. New Space and satellite programs have faster schedules, lower budget goals, application-specific performance requirements, shorter mission lifespans and less demanding low-Earth orbit (LEO) environments.
Government space and defense agencies have adapted to the New Space boom by increasing partnerships with commercial companies. While commercial programs have more flexibility, commercial-government partnerships still include many of the industry’s performance and testing requirements to high-reliability standards. Spirit Electronics offers a supply chain channel between the global companies and the American space market. Partnering with the right American supplier has strategic advantages.
Locality and supply chain security: Proximity to the American market impacts sales, design and supplier opportunities. Longer supply chains carry a greater risk of logistical challenges. Customer trust and supplier reliability are critical. Spirit is headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, and supports high-activity industry hubs across the country, providing locality and supply chain continuity.
American-made priority and export controls: The US government is prioritizing domestic semiconductor production. Spirit Electronics’ engineering services perform assembly and test processes within the US to bring global partners’ products under the American-made umbrella. Spirit also manages US regulatory requirements such as export controls and cybersecurity around sensitive technical data and products to support global companies in government-partnered space programs.
Flight heritage: While commercial space has opened the door to innovation and agility in product performance, technologies with a proven track record in space are more firmly entrenched in satellite and launch designs, especially in government-partnered programs. Spirit has established expertise in reliability testing for American customers and support global products through the necessary qualification stages to meet a full range of New Space mission requirements.
Outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) availability: Packaging and assembly is often outsourced, but supply sources within the US are limited in capacity. Spirit specializes in low-volume high-mix products, which directly supports space and satellite programs for prototyping or production volumes varying from single satellites to full constellations.
The best access to the American space marketing is through a supply chain partnership that offers proximity, logistical support and American-based services that establish reliability. Spirit supports a wide range of engineering and distribution services that offer multiple points of entry.
Many global companies are fabless, outsourcing all production after the design stage. Others may outsource only finishing processes, such as testing. Spirit Electronics’ engineering services support design, ASICs, foundry access, reliability testing and packaging and assembly to cover all stages of production.
Foundry services:
Foundry services support manufacturing at the wafer level. For fabless companies or companies designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), a foundry partner provides access to high-quality fabs as well as logistics management to manufacture ICs stateside.
Reliability testing:
Whether flexible requirements for LEO applications and satellites or stricter high-reliability requirements for space exploration and government programs, space customers will want components, modules and assemblies to undergo reliability testing for mission assurance. Spirit performs environmental testing, electrical testing or radiation testing that will establish a product’s performance parameters for customers in the American market.
Packaging and assembly:
Component-level packaging includes substrate design and sourcing and assembly semiconductor die into a ceramic or plastic chip package. While traditional space programs rely on ceramic or hermetically sealing packaging, plastic packaging in radiation tolerant products is increasingly popular among commercial space programs operating in lower orbits. Spirit also provides circuit card assembly with automated component placement onto a printed circuit board. Modules and subsystems might undergo box assembly or other final assembly stages. Each assembly step is an opportunity to bring the product into the American supply chain ready for the end customer’s use.
Spirit Electronics is a franchised distributor for a range of manufacturers from FPGA products at the heart of many designs to some of the best power management, sensing and supporting components used in commercial space designs. With access to customers’ full bill-of-materials, Spirit finds design and drop-in replacement opportunities for global technologies.
Spirit is more just a pass-through logistical shipping stop in the global supply chain. As a specialized distributor with space experience, Spirit manages reliability and security requirements and provides customers relationships and opportunities. This established distribution channel also supports sourcing for international module and subsystem manufacturers.
Commercialization for space and satellite technology has boosted the growth of global space agency investment and launch activity. The result is high-value technology growth among global companies with potential applications for American commercial and government programs.
With the majority of the space industry launching in the US, global space companies cannot afford to ignore the American space market. Working with a supply chain partner like Spirit Electronics creates opportunities to establish flight heritage and product reliability as the space industry continues to grow.
