The decisions, argued through.
Every space program starts with a handful of procurement choices that shape everything after them. These pages take each one seriously: the case for both sides, where the line actually sits, and a verdict you can disagree with.
- The arithmetic changed. The queue did not.
Buy satellite imagery, or own the satellite?
Buying imagery is cheap to start and expensive to depend on. Owning a satellite is the reverse. The right answer depends on how often you task, what you task in a crisis, and whose government sits between you and your own pictures.
Read the argument - One reads a scene. The other works the night shift.
Optical or SAR?
Optical sensors produce imagery people can read without training; radar produces data that ignores cloud and darkness. Neither replaces the other, and the sequencing question matters more than the either-or question most tenders ask.
Read the argument - Revisit is a constellation property. So is resilience.
One satellite, or a constellation?
A single satellite proves a country can operate in orbit. A constellation changes what the country can decide. The mistake is specifying one while budgeting for the other, or buying resolution when the mission needed revisit.
Read the argument - Someone else's bus is someone else's orbit.
A dedicated satellite, or a hosted payload?
Hosting your instrument on another operator's satellite trades money and schedule for control. Sometimes that trade is exactly right. It stops being right the moment the payload's purpose is sovereign.
Read the argument - Terms of service are not treaties.
Lease satellite capacity, or own the network?
Leased bandwidth is fast to procure and easy to grow. It is also revocable by whoever operates the payload and the gateway. For civilian broadband that risk is a footnote; for national command traffic it is the whole question.
Read the argument