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Assuming they get Starship flying, yes. 30 paying customers over the 5-year lifetime of a satellite is $180k. This is more than the estimated cost of a satelli
by Tuna-Fish 6y ago
Assuming they get Starship flying, yes.
30 paying customers over the 5-year lifetime of a satellite is $180k. This is more than the estimated cost of a satellite plus the cost of lifting it into orbit assuming they have a fully reusable launch vehicle.
However, even if they don't achieve that you are ignoring a rather important point: that is, most of the time the satellites are not over the US, and there are paying customers elsewhere, too. Even though the profit is not going to be as great elsewhere (generally, in most of the world you have to pay for spectrum, and the customers probably can't support as high a price), each Starlink satellite will spend roughly 50% of it's time within reach of a populated area it can serve. (Even over the southern pacific, with a low angle to the horizon the satellites will be in range of a populated island quite often.)