financial management
2024.02.15 05:58 Taipei time
In October 2023, President Tsai Ing-wen attended the “Taiwan Annual Space International Conference (TASTI)” and announced that she would increase her investment by 40 billion to form a Taiwanese national space team and invest in the development of low-orbit satellites; then, Hon Hai teamed up with Space X to launch The Pearl low-orbit satellite seems to echo the government’s policy and seize global space business opportunities.
According to this magazine’s investigation, CubeSats have the advantages of low cost, easy design, construction, and standardization, breaking the original monopoly of the satellite industry by the state or a few players. With the support of Space X, satellite launch costs have been significantly reduced, creating a new space era. It has already started, and Taiwanese manufacturers including Hon Hai and Intelligent Space are all working hard on it.
In the early morning of November 12, 2023, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off and released a large amount of white smoke. Different from the past, the Taiwanese people could only watch the Falcon 9 take off with a spectator mentality. This time , the two Pearl satellites developed by Hon Hai also flew into space with Falcon 9, connecting Taiwan with SpaceX.
Hon Hai has been working silently for two years and successfully sent an 8.8kg, 6U CubeSat into space. Zhao Yuanhan, senior director of Hon Hai B5G (Beyond 5G) Policy Development, pointed out at the “Hon Hai Technology Day” that the space industry has been developing for 30 to 50 years and has made great progress in satellite TV, broadcasting, and national defense. However, it has been closed for a long time. The ICT industry operates rapidly.
However, with the advent of Space X, the space industry has begun to show a new look. Zhao Yuanhan pointed out that “SpaceX launched the Starlink service. In just a few years, the number of satellites it launched has exceeded the cumulative number of satellites in the past 2 or 30 years. It has significantly reduced the cost of orbiting satellite launches, from about 20,000 to 30,000 US dollars per kilogram unit cost. USD 2,000~3,000.
In just a few years, Space (Provided by Hon Hai)
“This (space) industry is developing rapidly. When demand starts to increase, supply is too late to keep up. Hon Hai has the advantage of vertical integration. Drawing on its strategy in the electric vehicle field, it also hopes to use open specifications and open specifications for the space industry. The reference design method allows all costs to be reduced rapidly, and we are deeply involved in different aspects of satellites, including key components, substrates, subsystems, and the entire satellite, while simultaneously entering into the development of the satellite industry in the sky and underground,” said Zhao Yuanhan.
This Pearl launch can be said to be a stepping stone for Hon Hai to enter low-orbit satellites. Wu Renming, director of Hon Hai New Generation Communications Research Institute, pointed out that the 6U cube satellite launched this time is still in the proof-of-concept (PoC) stage, and its main tasks are to obtain space experience, measure the operating parameters of electronic equipment in the space environment, and wireless Channel characteristic measurement and millimeter wave broadband communication.
According to information from the National Taiwan University Science and Education Development Center, CubeSats are artificial satellites that are small in size, light in weight, low in cost, and have fixed specifications. They are the entry-level model for those who are interested in satellite development around the world. Perhaps because the threshold is low and not only large companies can afford it, it has attracted Taiwanese manufacturers such as Hon Hai to rush in, and even new entrepreneurs Zhitan Space has also followed suit.
Update time｜2024.02.15 05:59 Taipei time
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2024-02-15 13:58:00
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