Phillip Carrai on commercial viability
From Executive Insights: Interview with Phil Carrai, President, Kratos Space · · Constellations Podcast
“Even with Starlink and SpaceX's government contracts as anchors, many other revenue streams are needed to make commercial LEO constellations economically viable at scale, especially from a consumer standpoint where fiber broadband still tends to be the better access point.”
On , Phillip Carrai, President of Space, Training & Cyber Solutions Division at KRATOS DEFENSE & SECURITY, spoke about commercial viability during Executive Insights: Interview with Phil Carrai, President, Kratos Space on Constellations Podcast.
About Phillip Carrai
In a September 2025 podcast interview, Carrai highlighted Kratos Space's recent 5G non-terrestrial network (NTN) test conducted over geostationary orbit in partnership with Intelsat, which he described as a substantial development. He stated that 5G is the future of satellite communications, particularly for mobility and the Internet of Things, and that connecting seamlessly to terrestrial infrastructure is the future of satcom across all orbits. Carrai also discussed major shifts in the space industry, noting that the emergence of SpaceX had upended the assumption that launch would always be expensive and limited, and that the rise of mega-constellations like Starlink had caused a monumental change in the industry's economics and scale. He said the last four to five years in space have seen unprecedented disruption in business models, requiring constant adjustment of strategy and product development. In a 2016 interview, Carrai predicted that the biggest impact in the following three years would come from high-throughput satellite (HTS) technology, citing the amount of bandwidth and types of services it would enable. He also forecast that innovations in small satellites and non-geostationary orbit satellites would be significant in the three-to-five-year timeframe, affecting cost effectiveness and ground system design. Carrai expressed a desire for more standardization in satellite waveforms, similar to the mobile world, which he said would benefit the market as HTS and large-scale non-geo constellations developed.