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I'm unclear why the author sees the collapse of OneWeb as a bearish sign for SpaceX; this is a competitor falling away, leaving Starlink with only Amazon's rece

I'm unclear why the author sees the collapse of OneWeb as a bearish sign for SpaceX; this is a competitor falling away, leaving Starlink with only Amazon's recently-founded Kuiper as competition. COVID-19 is indeed a challenge, as it is for the rest of the economy, but it's not particularly more affected than any other business. In terms of cash flow, it may be somewhat insulated by the advance deposits that the article describes as a kind of numerical gimmick; SpaceX can and is still landing contracts for future activity, even while some launches have been delayed, meaning there's still some cash flow even if it goes partially idle for a few months. This resilience, of course, requires the customers who put down money for future launches to have healthy cash flow themselves. Since those customers are mostly telecommunications corps and governments, I don't foresee them running into cash flow issues. They'll still be awarding contracts based on long-term prospects.

new_realist 7y ago
SpaceX is wasting resources questing for Mars, and satellite launches are the ultimate in discretionary spending—not popular in these uncertain times.
- senectus1 7y ago
  its a stretch goal. you watch them fill the void with what they learn from stretching.
- azernik 7y ago
  Let's look at the SpaceX launch manifest for the next year (not counting Starlink), to get a look at what their cash flow comes from: - 6 military (US, South Korea, Germany) - 6 commercial telecommunications - 4 ISS cargo and crew transport - 1 astrophysics - 1 scientific earth observation - 1 tech demonstration - 1 rideshare of a bunch of cubesats Only those last four would I classify as "discretionary spending" - military spending is quite immune to the present crisis, telecoms is if anything more important than ever, and the ISS support is necessary to maintain an enormous capital investment. I think you have a mental image of the launch market looking mostly like those last four, when in fact that's a small minority of the market. (And of those four, two are of the institutional research category that gets budgeted and contracted years in advance; a 1-year crisis isn't going to have much effect on budgeting decisions for 2022 and onward.)

new_realist 7y ago

SpaceX is wasting resources questing for Mars, and satellite launches are the ultimate in discretionary spending—not popular in these uncertain times.

senectus1 7y ago
its a stretch goal. you watch them fill the void with what they learn from stretching.
azernik 7y ago
Let's look at the SpaceX launch manifest for the next year (not counting Starlink), to get a look at what their cash flow comes from: - 6 military (US, South Korea, Germany) - 6 commercial telecommunications - 4 ISS cargo and crew transport - 1 astrophysics - 1 scientific earth observation - 1 tech demonstration - 1 rideshare of a bunch of cubesats Only those last four would I classify as "discretionary spending" - military spending is quite immune to the present crisis, telecoms is if anything more important than ever, and the ISS support is necessary to maintain an enormous capital investment. I think you have a mental image of the launch market looking mostly like those last four, when in fact that's a small minority of the market. (And of those four, two are of the institutional research category that gets budgeted and contracted years in advance; a 1-year crisis isn't going to have much effect on budgeting decisions for 2022 and onward.)