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Everything on this rocket is recycled except for the second stage
- ChuckMcM 7y agoThis is a pretty good milestone for SpaceX. It has been a while in coming but hey, its pretty amazing. The "new" things on this rocket (not counting the stack of satellites) are the second stage with its single vacuum Merlin engine and the propellant. If it costs $10M for the second stage and $100K for propellant, that leaves launch site operational costs. That means about $17K/lb to launch Starlink into LEO. Using 600lbs for the cluster, that is 10lbs per satellite, so $170K per satellite. I wonder how long the satellite has to operate to pay that back. Let's assume they are shooting for a lifetime of 5 years, that is $34K/year, and say 12,000 satellites for full up Internet service that's $408M per year depreciation costs. So Internet service at $25/month for 50M subscribers is gross revenue of $15B/year. That is some sweet margin.