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SpaceX did the same thing with Starship. I think this is why Dynetics didn’t win, tho. They couldn’t self-fund.
by Robotbeat 3y ago
SpaceX did the same thing with Starship. I think this is why Dynetics didn’t win, tho. They couldn’t self-fund.
- cubefox 3y agoStarship development is projected to cost 2 billion this year alone, and they have a lot left to do (developing the HLS upper stage variant, orbital refueling) so it seems likely that SpaceX will lose money on this.
- Robotbeat 3y agoYes, but keep in mind that Starship is mostly going to be used for launching Starship satellites in the early years, and that is super valuable to SpaceX. Falcon 9 is super cheap and has a low marginal cost to SpaceX, but to launch the full sized Gen2 Starlink system would cost ~$100 billion extra if done on Falcon 9 vs Starship (and that’s just initial launch… the constellation would need refreshing on a 5-10 year basis), so Starship is worth about $100 billion to the Starlink program alone. Refueling will also be helpful for launching commercial satellites to geosynchronous orbit, for crewed missions like Dear Moon, etc. This is why SpaceX doesn’t mind co-investing on Starship.
- panick21_ 3y agoThe Lunar contract was never meant to pay the whole development. Starship is not a dedicated lunar architecture for NASA. NASA does not finance most of Starship development, but rather a variant of the upper stage for lunar landing. So yes, SpaceX will 'lose' money but they will have a very versatile rocket that can use for everything.