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LEO sats have a lifespan (5 years IIRC), so you have to constantly refresh your constellation with new launches and sats. These launch and replacement costs wi

LEO sats have a lifespan (5 years IIRC), so you have to constantly refresh your constellation with new launches and sats. These launch and replacement costs will drop over time, but they aren't trivial. Don't get me wrong, it's an incredible business, but there are real operating costs to keeping the network alive.

thot_experiment 4y ago
As mentioned in the other comment and the parent, Ukrainian wartime demand is not relevant to that side of the business, there aren't satellites that are deployed specifically to serve Ukraine and I am informed guessing that there is no aspect of the network that is actually degraded in a customer-losing sense, and while there may be greater bandwidth costs I am unconvinced that the total cost to Spacex is particularly high. (fwiw it would be chill of the US government to pitch them some money for the actual cost imo, but i think the actual cost to spacex (real and opportunity) is likely much smaller than the numbers being bandied about here)