Techno-Economic Design Aspects of Satellite Mega-Constellations for 6G Services

6th Generation (6G) Non- Terrestrial Networks (NTN) prove to be the next step for integrating satellites into existing communication network infrastructure. Moreover, mega-constellations will play a predominant role in this integration. With the success of disruptive and innovative constellations, such as Starlink and OneWeb, a highly competitive field of commercial broadband satellite internet is currently established. In this paper, we introduce a novel technological framework demonstrating the economic performance indicators of mega-constellations to compete with the existing terrestrial broadband internet market. Furthermore, we implement a comprehensive economic model to measure the influence of technology on decreasing the costs in mega-constellations and compare the technological parameters in their cost reduction efficiency. Our analysis enables the identification of main cost drivers in the technical design of mega-constellations, independently of the applied waveform or transmission standard. By optimizing these cost drivers, mega-constellations can achieve a cost regime comparable to terrestrial competitors to secure their participation in future integrated 6G networks.