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All of the larger constellations, starting with Iridium, then Oneweb, then Starlink, involve building a factory and an assembly line. Iridium hoped other conste
by greglindahl 9y ago
All of the larger constellations, starting with Iridium, then Oneweb, then Starlink, involve building a factory and an assembly line. Iridium hoped other constellation makers would use theirs, apparently hasn't scored any new business and they're getting close to finishing. Oneweb has a factory under construction that's bigger, and Starlink's factory will be even bigger. Oneweb's is built in collaboration with Arianespace and also hopes to sign up business.
Insomuch as Oneweb uses off-the-shelf parts, they want so many of them that their suppliers are having to build new factories to build those parts. Their solar array supplier is doing that, for example. I suspect Starlink will use a model closer to the Gigafactory and Tesla's partnership with Panasonic.
Lots of people are offering standard satellite parts, at high prices and low volumes. It'll be interesting to see what kind of trickledown Oneweb causes.