Bill Gattle is the president of Space and Intelligence Systems at the Harris Corporation. | Harris Corporation Space A small satellite revolution? Small, lower cost satellites are beginning to gain traction among intelligence agencies, says a top industry executive.

National security agencies are steadily testing out more small satellites before committing to new constellations of the lower-cost alternatives, according to Bill Gattle, the president of Space and Intelligence Systems at the Harris Corporation.

“We’re seeing a lot more acceleration, certainly in the intelligence community, on their willingness to adopt it. We’ve certainly seen some things out of Army,” said Gattle, a former program director of terrestrial communications and director of engineering for defense programs at the Pentagon. “It’s moved from ... customers being intrigued to believing it’s worthy of a demo.”


Small satellites are typically no bigger than a refrigerator and weigh less than 180 kilograms, according to a NASA fact sheet. By comparison, some of the largest satellites are the size of a school bus. The reduced size means small satellites are typically cheaper but less capable than their larger counterparts. To make up for that gap, small sats can be launched in a constellation of tens or even hundreds of satellites, networked together, making the entire system more resilient if one goes offline.

At the beginning of 2018, Harris had three customers for its small sats. A year later, it has five government customers under contract for 17 small satellites. One of those is for an Army communications satellite, Gattle said, though the company could not provide additional details.

That doesn’t mean there’s been universal acceptance. Even Gattle acknowledges there are hurdles the small satellite industry needs to overcome to see sustained growth in the military and intelligence market.

“How do you get the data quickly from the satellite to the war fighter who needs it?” Gattle said. “It doesn't help you to know a missile landed five minutes ago. You have to have the timeline be very quick and you need need a communications backbone ... which will be pivotal to how fast this grows.”

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Gattle also talked about the launch of Harris’ first small satellite last month, how the company is going on a hiring spree and what 2019 has in store for the industry.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Harris launched its first small sat in December.

Part of this is credibility and showing that Harris can [be the prime contractor] ... from satellite to ground to data gathering and processing. This would not have been something we would have been known for five years ago. ... We felt like we needed to show with our own investment that we could put together the pieces. ... The small sat industry is still emerging, so there’s not a lot of people who have operating experience in a mission context. This has allowed us to gain that experience.

Is Harris reorienting its business model toward more small sats?

We’ve seen multiple different customers now invest in us as a small sat provider. We currently have 17 small sats under contract for five different customers. What we’re starting to see is ... [customers] want to do an initial launch before they do large constellations. We’ve moved from seeing people interested in small sats but not investing, to people seeing the value to fly a pathfinder mission. ... These are all leading to constellations ... but they want to prove it out at a small scale. It’s been an incremental investment strategy by the government to try to prove out the concepts.

Right now, they’re all government customers. ... One in the open is that the Army has contracted with us for a communications satellite.

How does that compare to your small sat customers last year?

We had three at the beginning of 2018. Two-and-a-half years back, we had none. So we’ve gone from none to 17 in two years. It’s a very fast-growing market.

How is the company changing to accommodate that?

We’re hiring a lot. ... We are hiring at the fastest pace we’ve ever hired.

You've previously said there remains government resistance to relying on small satellites.

We’re seeing a lot more acceleration, certainly in the intelligence community, on their willingness to adopt it. We’ve certainly seen some things out of Army. There hasn’t been universal acceptance, but they’re seeing enough goodness that we're seeing an accelerating desire to use small sats in missions. I think they’re seeing there is real mission value now. We’re able to prove it. ... It’s moved from ... customers being intrigued to believing it’s worthy of a demo.

What does 2019 have in store for small sats?

I expect to see constant growth ... but there are some things that I think are going to need to be answered and fixed before we see it take off.

Go back to the Schriever Wargames a few years ago, [military officials] highlighted a few things that needed to happen. They need satellites to be more persistent and have a shorter timeline between sensing and action. ... That set in motion a completely different dynamic than we had seen prior to that. ... It has shifted because of the persistence aspect and the shorter timeline of sense to shoot.

You can fix the persistence problem with quantity ... but the second problem is still out there, which is how do you get the data quickly from the satellite to the warfighter who needs it? ... It doesn't help you to know a missile landed five minutes ago. You have to have the timeline be very quick and you need need a communications backbone ... which will be pivotal to how fast this grows.

Is this just a small sats problem?

It’s impacting larger satellites as well, but it’s extraordinarily difficult for small satellites because they’re at low earth orbit, so they pass over someplace. They’re not staring at it [like satellites in geosynchronous orbit are].