First SpaceX Starlink satellites loaded into Falcon fairing
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https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-tease-r...
Either way, I think that these are mostly being put up to serve two important purposes: testing various technologies with enough test vehicles to get strong(ish) statistics, and working their way to the thousands of deployed satellites the FCC will require them to have deployed if they don’t want to lose their frequency allocation.
All of that is completely unsourced and heard through anonymous sources that have posted on various forums, so take it with as much salt as you need.
Sounds highly plausible to me, given [1]. I won't say that they won't eventually get there, but it's definitely not going to be a cakewalk.
I've helped with EDRS [1] and I can confidently assert that these things are everything but trivial to get to work well. The technology is so highly sophisticated on so many levels that I was quite literally shocked more than once during that time.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Data_Relay_System
Listening to Sandy Munro rant about so many things he doesn’t like about how Tesla builds their cars, one thing he is awed by is their electronics.
I will say that they fucked up the eMMC chip in their first gen MCU though, people are out there unsoldering, cloning, and replacing the chip to try to bring back their cars from the dead to avoid paying ~$3k for a whole new MCU.
[1] - http://teslaservicemanual.com/2019/01/18/replacing-emmc-in-m...
* Total deployed size will be ~12K satellites and take a decade or so. Will be operational in a reduced capacity as early as next year.
* Since they're in low earth orbit, latency could be in the 35ms range.
NYC to London on the current internet is 76ms, he shows it across starlink's updated plans as working out to around 46ms.
Later in the description he points out a mistake in his own math and says that starlink paths should be 8.7% faster than the video shows, so really jfk<->lhr ~ 42ms.
Elon said there’s no separate dispenser to deploy them. I really hope we can see them deploy, that would be an incredible sight.
Best of luck. They are expecting a lot will go wrong, but let’s hope they’re wrong about that!
North-South will still be terrestrial.
This isn't going to let them jump past national regulatory agencies. It will help them avoid local regulations and right-of-way issues that helped kill Google fiber.
Where did you get the $10 billion number from?
- 167k per sat construction cost
- 20 mill per launch (at-cost WAG)
- 333k launch costs per sat
- 500k per sat total cost
these numbers give a final 12000 sat constellation cost of 6 billion. The initial 1600 sat constellation comes to 800million
But if my assumptions are off, it could be way less or more. If they make the satellites even cheaper, or at cost launches are less, or they end up being able to launch on Starship, it's significantly less. If sats cost more, or launches are more, then the cost goes through the roof.
Comcast spends ~$8 billion on CapEx annually.
It feels uneasy especially when you recognize parallels with climate change in how we’re creating a problem for future generations chasing shorter-term goals.
They'll deorbit long before 20 years are up. The ISS requires regular boosts to stay in orbit, due to atmospheric drag. SpaceX's satellites will last probably ~5 years at most.
Further, as SpaceX is having trouble raising the needed funds, is this launch simply a fundraising exercise?
Rural areas are a viable market only in the US and Canada, where people can afford to pay $50+/month for connectivity. Elsewhere in the world, they are not going to sell to any end-users.
The 4,425 and the 7,500 satellite constellations proposed by SpaceX are way oversized and simply put, a waste of money and efforts.
And they could stop launching them if they don't see a supply, basically just matching their registration numbers and launching more when the bandwidth/users require it.
Those numbers seem to just be a target for an ideal completed system, not for it to become operational.
Now I just need some Tesla solar panels and a couple powerwalls, and betweeen that, a well, my septic system, I can cut every cable coming into my house.
Well, I do use natural gas for heating and I love my gas stove, but nearly there!
If only the receiver and the power requirements were small enough to fit in my cell phone!
They've also already awarded spacex a $28.7 million dollar contract for "experimentation in the areas of establishing connectivity, operational experimentation, and special purpose experimentation. Experimentation will include connectivity demonstrations to Air Force ground sites and aircraft for experimental purposes" [1] so they are definitely eyeing it.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wideband_Global_SATCOM
[1]: http://www.parabolicarc.com/2018/12/27/spacex-receives-287-m...
What you are describing sounds like a rapidly expanding market, not a shrinking market, though, right?
> Further, as SpaceX is having trouble raising the needed funds, is this launch simply a fundraising exercise?
What do you mean? SpaceX is not having trouble raising their needed funds. Do you have a citation for that? This is the first I'd be hearing of it and would be surprised. Also, needed for what? Are you referring to Mars colonization?
> is this launch simply a fundraising exercise?
This also doesn't make any sense. This launch is a groundbreaking event that begins a 12,000 satellite network deployment. This is a very cost-intensive thing and not exactly a 'fund raising exercise'; it's intended to provide early service to internet customers.
Edit: Based on the info I was able to find, it looks like this is indeed false information and not true at all.
I can find no evidence that SpaceX is having trouble raising money or that their recent raises have gone poorly. No evidence. But I can find a lot of people explaining why these numbers are incorrect and why it is false to say that SpaceX is having trouble raising money. A lot. Here are a few.
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/bem0lr/spacex_only_...
I don't know much about SEC regulations - they're required to file info about who has invested in the first 15 days - and rumours used that to say they couldn't sell all they offered. Other rumours said that they don't have to file to say they sold it all. Would appreciate clarity from someone who knows SEC regulations.
[1] http://www.parabolicarc.com/2019/04/17/spacex-embarks-fundin...
Edit: you've found the discussion I read a bit ago. Good.
It is going to be a money-printing machine if that works out. No matter how deep in the desert someone is, they can have the same connection as someone much closer to a city. Granted, it is not going to have fiber-bandwidth but it's fast enough and everywhere between 53° of latitude north and south.
Before they get there they have how many satellites to build and launch? Before space link is profitable and cash positive all that cost has to off set by profit and positive cash flow. Looking at it from that perspective, the idea that this is some kind of fund raising exercise isn't to far fetched. Personally I doubt that SpaceX is cash positive and profitable as their funding rounds just match too nicely their losses if you assume that real SpaceX launch costs are somewhere near the commercial costs of their competition.
Honestly, I almost expected something like that after their capsule blew up.
The saddest element of both SpaceX and Tesla is that all the successes and cool stuff these companies do just gets drowned in all the Musk hype and BS. An I seriously doubt that it does any good.
No, that's not what this is. The comment above you said nothing about this anyway, it seems to be off-topic? The entire point of this launch is to reduce the risk, assess potential problems early, and find paying customers quickly to prove the market demand before and their ability to handle it, before scaling up and launching more.
> So again one of Elon Musks enterprises is promising a long term success story.
There is no way to make the world better without trying to do it. And that takes time. Why would you have a problem with someone trying to make the world better on a long-term scale? And also, nobody is promising anything, especially as SpaceX is not a public company and has no public investors.
> Before they get there they have how many satellites to build and launch?
Like, 60? And just this launch? I believe they intend to be revenue-generating from this very first network launch? This isn't some long-term gamble, they are testing the market quickly for acceptance of their tech and business model.
> Before space link is profitable and cash positive all that cost has to off set by profit and positive cash flow
It's called Starlink. And, okay..?
> Personally I doubt that SpaceX is cash positive and profitable
Oh. You are directly stating that the CFO, CEO and President of SpaceX are liars? If that is your position I don't think much that I say will ever change your understanding of this. You are mired in conspiracy theories and not listening to the facts in the world.
Long term stories are great. And yes, everything that makes the world a better place is welcome. But considering the state of things in less developed countries, I assume space born Wifi is not the top priority. But hey, if investors are buying into I won't complain.
The whole service is planned to have around 12k satellites (another comment, did check primary sources myself yet). So still way to go.
Regarding finances, as SpaceX is a private company reliable numbers are hard to come by. All I have is what little went public a couple of years ago, benchmark numbers from other launch companies and the public parts NASA contracts. But I should have been more precise: my cash and profitability remark concerned their operative launch business excl. NASA dev contracts and the like. I suspect that their development is financed by external funding while their government contracts are cross-financing their low commercial launch costs. Nothing wrong with that as everybody else in that industry is doing the same thing. Everybody else isn't SpaceX, so.
Just one last thing, I am happy to discuss SpaceX. Because new facts and view points are how we develop. Implying that I call people I don't know liars and that I am full of conspiracy theories is not helping in that regard. Just saying.
SpaceX is profitable.
> But considering the state of things in less developed countries, I assume space born Wifi is not the top priority. But hey, if investors are buying into I won't complain.
Reliable and fast access to information improves quality of life, even in places with other problems. Much of the USA is like a developing nation itself, with population-scale problems of getting access to clean water and having basic food security. But still, reliable network access can also improve both of those things too - the internet is backbone infrastructure just like the water pipes, and is needed for a developing country - or a developed one - to grow economically.
> I assume space born Wifi is not the top priority.
Countries, organizations, investors, businesses can all work on more than one thing at once. Something need not be 'top priority' for it to be worthy of investment and continuing to do at break-neck pace.
> my cash and profitability remark concerned their operative launch business excl. NASA dev contracts and the like
Do you mean that you are excluding a primary revenue source from their finances in your calculations? I just don't get it.
I tried to explain my line of thought. You disagree, fine. It is just that when I developed an interest in the financial aspects of the launch business around end of 2018 and early 2019, I wasn't the only one with doubts in that regard. I'm no expert on either aspect, so if there facts out there that proof me wrong just share them. We are all hear to learn, right? Just do me a favour and don't cite reddit, ok?
Here's what the parent comment was getting at:
> SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Tuesday that the privately held Hawthorne space company is valued at almost $28 billion based on recent funding rounds, and that it is profitable.[1]
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-shotwell-20180...
A major difference is that Iridium service was (and still is) extremely expensive. Nobody used it unless it was the only choice. Out in the middle of the ocean? Iridium is great. At the end of a long country road with nothing but a POTS line that can barely accommodate a 14.4k modem? Use that modem, it’s way cheaper and faster.
SpaceX hopes to provide pricing and speeds that are competitive with terrestrial options in many places. They’re not just trying to serve an ever-shrinking customer base that can’t get any connectivity otherwise.
Maybe put it in a spin and just let them go? (in a controlled release)