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And? So does everyone else, because Transporter rideshares are cheap and incubating your own rocket programme isn't.

SpaceX relies on Europe and Taiwan for its semiconductors. Does the fact SpaceX can't be adequately served by domestic capacity and their in-house semiconductor programme is just getting started mean they don't execute?! Or is it just a little thing called trade that Americans used to believe in?

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> SpaceX relies on Europe and Taiwan for its semiconductors

Used and relies on aren’t interchangeable. (To the extent there is reliance, it’s more on Taiwan than Europe.)

tbh launch is at least as commoditised as space semiconductor packaging, especially when it's rideshares to LEO; the Exploration Company wouldn't struggle to get into space if the Falcon 9 wasn't a thing, it'd just have to pay someone else more[1], and no particular reason to doubt its ability to deliver on its longer term plan to develop its own launch capability either. Doubt that SpaceX would want to operate a Falcon 9 without any chips on board or locally-packaged COTS parts either!

[1]if Europeans wanting IODs of their reentry capsules for some reason couldn't use SpaceX, ArianeSpace absolutely has the technical ability to take the equivalent to Transporter mission payloads to the same orbits at the same launch cadence (this was the 14th Transporter rideshare mission since 2021), but obviously price-sensitive rideshare customers aren't going to use it whilst US and Indian launches are options, and much cheaper ones. Extra cost might be a dealbreaker for some less well funded space startups, but not for the company we're talking about here...

> launch is at least as commoditised as space semiconductor packaging

Cadence and national origin de-commoditise launch.

> the Exploration Company wouldn't struggle to get into space if the Falcon 9 wasn't a thing, it'd just have to pay someone else more

And wait longer. Higher cost, uncertainty and lead times challenge project viability.

> ArianeSpace absolutely has the technical ability to take the equivalent to Transporter mission payloads to the same orbits at the same launch cadence

Arianespace has a negligible fraction of SpaceX’s launch cadence. Europe doesn’t have the ability to build e.g. a LEO constellation with its own rockets, or replace destroyed orbital materiel in a conflict as quickly as China or America can.

SpaceX's launch cadence is great for expanding their in-house constellation but basically irrelevant to companies purchasing rideshare slots for in orbit demonstrations like the Exploration Company. Take it from someone that's expecting to fly hardware on two of the next three Transporter missions (in late February and late June next year...). ArianeSpace could absolutely spin up an extra couple of missions on those timescales if their prices were the only option, and satellite integration timescales are a bigger issue for development than the timing of the next launch window. We wouldn't like Ariane 6 prices being added to our mission costs and at the margins some companies wouldn't afford it, but the Exploration Company has raised $230m and has already launched on an Ariane 6. The "Europeans have to use US capacity because they can't innovate har har" argument simply isn't at all relevant to IODs on Transporter missions (which ironically are full of US companies buying slots on European companies' deployment platforms as well as having plenty of critical non-US kit even in SpaceX's unusually vertically-integrated supply chain. Not because the US can't innovate har har but because the commercial space industry is globally distributed and price driven. Well, maybe not price driven if you're the military or Jeff Bezos building your LEO constellation on ArianeSpace launches whilst working on New Glenn...).

Don't think high cadence launches are even particularly high on the list of the US's military advantages in the event of global conflict extending into space: destruction of non-trivial amounts of orbital material would render its launch advantage moot until the Kessler syndrome problem was solved...

> irrelevant to companies purchasing rideshare slots for in orbit demonstrations like the Exploration Company

Irrelevant for rideshare. But ArianeSpace “spin[ning] up an extra couple of missions” is also not ridesharing. Last I checked, you can book a ride on SpaceX faster than anything Ariane.

In the hypothetical where rideshares on SpaceX suddenly cease to exist or to be available to European companies, ArianeSpace would be delighted to have the opportunity to replace them on similar schedules, and would be able to spin up extra rideshare missions to meet that sudden demand for their services reasonably easily (certainly far more easily than SpaceX or anyone else in the industry could nearshore their entire supply chain fwiw; it's pretty obvious your use/rely distinction cuts the other way). SpaceX owns the LEO rideshare market because they can turn a profit at prices others can't match, not because 3 Transporter missions per year is a difficult launch cadence.

""For the first time ever in our country's history, we are making leading-edge 4nm chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan," Raimondo told Reuters."

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ts...

https://www.tsmc.com/static/abouttsmcaz/index.htm

Exactly. A Taiwanese company has just started manufacturing leading edge semiconductors in the US. SpaceX, on the other hand uses Taiwanese semiconductors mostly packaged by STMicroelectronics in Europe, although it's announced plans to in-house some of the packaging. Because until recently, it was kind of assumed that buying things from other countries because they did them cheaply and efficiency was sensible business rather than a glaring supply chain weakness or "your continent doesn't innovate, our country is better than yours"...

See also European companies and their choice of launch options...

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