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Maybe, but my sense as an outsider was that Starlink was moving at a snail's pace and was essentially PR vaporware prior to these firings. Granted, there's a lo

Maybe, but my sense as an outsider was that Starlink was moving at a snail's pace and was essentially PR vaporware prior to these firings. Granted, there's a lot of engineering going on behind the scenes, but the timing is perhaps suggestive... Look at the timeline: Jan 2015 -- announce plans Jan 2017 -- Starlink trademarked Feb 2018 - test flight of two satellites May 2019 - Launch 60 of the v0.9 model June 2019 - fire 7 people Oct 2019 - this article Nov 2019 - Launch 60 of the v1.0 model 7 Jan 2020 - 60 satellites launched 29 Jan 2020 - 60 satellites launched 17 Feb 2020 - 60 satellites launched 18 Mar 2020 - 60 satellites launched 22 Apr 2020 - 60 satellites launched 04 Jun 2020 - 60 satellites launched etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink

lr1970 6y ago
> Oct 2019 - this article The article was published on Oct 31, 2018 (not 2019).
m463 6y ago
Where do: "Amazon representatives have had "30 meetings to oppose SpaceX" but "no meetings to authorize its own system"" ... those 30 meetings fit into the timeline? :)
snapcore 6y ago
If you just graph the launches that looks like R&D + production ramp-up.
qchris 6y ago
I know that SpaceX has historically had a abnormally high development and deployment cadence, but I think that your second point about behind-the-scenes development is probably closest to the mark. To me, it seems more plausible that they were taking a solid-not-polished design that's been mostly worked through for a few years, doing some team re-org and removing people who aren't working out, and then finished tweaking the design and got ready for scaling to higher production over the next few months than it does they were scraping by on the skin of their teeth for almost four years and suddenly managed to catch up on everything (and have it work!) in those same last few months. It's absolutely possible I'm wrong, but if the Starklink team truly managed a timeline of 6 months from "vaporware" to functionally the world's first mega-constellation, I'd be absolutely floored.

lr1970 6y ago

> Oct 2019 - this article The article was published on Oct 31, 2018 (not 2019).

m463 6y ago

Where do: "Amazon representatives have had "30 meetings to oppose SpaceX" but "no meetings to authorize its own system"" ... those 30 meetings fit into the timeline? :)

snapcore 6y ago

If you just graph the launches that looks like R&D + production ramp-up.

qchris 6y ago

I know that SpaceX has historically had a abnormally high development and deployment cadence, but I think that your second point about behind-the-scenes development is probably closest to the mark. To me, it seems more plausible that they were taking a solid-not-polished design that's been mostly worked through for a few years, doing some team re-org and removing people who aren't working out, and then finished tweaking the design and got ready for scaling to higher production over the next few months than it does they were scraping by on the skin of their teeth for almost four years and suddenly managed to catch up on everything (and have it work!) in those same last few months. It's absolutely possible I'm wrong, but if the Starklink team truly managed a timeline of 6 months from "vaporware" to functionally the world's first mega-constellation, I'd be absolutely floored.