The small satellite market continues to accelerate. Over 2,800 satellites under 600 kg launched in 2024, and the projections for 2025 and 2026 are even higher. These are not just technology demonstrations anymore. They are operational constellations providing communications, Earth observation, weather monitoring, and maritime tracking.
The teams building these satellites face a unique challenge. They need the engineering rigor of traditional mission engineering, requirements traceability, mass and power budgets, risk management, phase gate reviews, but they do not have the budget or timeline for enterprise tooling. A three-person startup cannot spend six months setting up DOORS.
What these teams typically do is start with spreadsheets and scripts. It works for the first satellite. Maybe the second. By the time they are building a constellation, the spreadsheet approach is creating as many problems as it solves. Requirements links break. Budget margins are stale. Risk registers are out of date. Phase gate reviews take weeks to assemble.
This is the gap SMAD Portal was built for. Full mission engineering discipline, from requirements through phase gates, accessible to a three-person team in 10 minutes. No enterprise procurement cycle. No six-month setup. Just the tools the methodology requires, connected the way the methodology describes.