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Sure, StarLink may be profitable, especially if they continue to get RDOF funding from the government. I'm skeptical it would be profitable otherwise given the
by shaklee3 6y ago
Sure, StarLink may be profitable, especially if they continue to get RDOF funding from the government. I'm skeptical it would be profitable otherwise given the cost of the terminal. I don't believe their launch business will be profitable since the number of launches has been dropping every year, and they are becoming their main customer.
- fastball 6y agoSorry, I significantly edited my comment before seeing your reply. Also are we looking at the same chart? Not sure how you can make the claim that the number of launches has been dropping every year... every year since when? 2020 was the most launches ever, and in 2021 they are expected to do more commercial customer launches than all launches in 2020 + Starlink launches on top of that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Launch_outcomes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Launch_outcomes
- shaklee3 6y agoTake a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... and remove all launches where SpaceX was the customer (a net loss unless the payload they launch has payoff), and specifically look at the GTO launches (the ones that pay the most money). There are fewer and fewer GTO launches, and the number of customers has been going down. A cursory glance shows 2017 had 8, 8 in 2018, 4 in 2019, 2 in 2020, and about 8 planned in 2021 (we'll see, these typically slip quite a bit. The point being that they need profitable launches (not a small satellite they rideshare with 10 starlinks on) to sustain a launch business with that many engineers on it. I think 2021 will launch maybe half the GTO/GEO they're targeting this year due to delays, as was the case in 2020.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- fastball 6y agoI mean, clearly the payloads they're launching themselves will have a payoff, that's why they're launching them? Regardless, commercial launches is what I was talking about as well. Do you have a reference for the idea that GTO launches are the only ones which are profitable / significantly more profitable than other launches? I haven't seen that. Because otherwise it seems pretty out there to only look at a small subset of their commercial launches. And I'm assuming they'll do more GTO launches once Starship + Superheavy is online.