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Before Starlink, SpaceX assumed/hoped that a mass of new customers would come out of the woodwork when cheap launches became available (the easyJet strategy!).
by twic 3y ago
Before Starlink, SpaceX assumed/hoped that a mass of new customers would come out of the woodwork when cheap launches became available (the easyJet strategy!). When they didn't, they came up with Starlink to be that customer.
- foobarian 3y agoAlthough, aren't they launching something pretty much daily or weekly, even without accounting for Starlink? It just isn't in the news much.
- twic 3y agoI picked September last year [1] more or less at random; SpaceX launches by day of the month: 01 - Starlink 02 - military 04 - Starlink 09 - Starlink 12 - Starlink 16 - Starlink 20 - Starlink 24 - Starlink 25 - Starlink 30 - Starlink A skim through the other months suggests that per month, there is usually one US government launch, zero to two commercial or rideshare launches, and a bunch of Starlink launches. There is an amazing range of stuff on the rideshares! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_launches_in_July%E2%80%93December_2023#September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_launches_i...
- panick21_ 3y agoThere are lots of new costumers. The thing is just that most of those don't need the huge sats of the past. And also people lose perspective. What we have to remember is how few launches other large rockets used to have. Ariane 5 the commercial success story peaked at 7 launches. So yes, new costumers, but not enough to go from 7 to 100+.
- m4rtink 3y agoSure, they might have guessed the scale or ramp-up wrong, I would still argue there is quite a few more launches now happening than there would be without Space X jump-starting the whole thing. Still, not being fully dependent on that certainly helps. :)
- twic 3y agoOh, there are definitely more! The question is whether, without Starlink, there are enough for SpaceX's vision to be viable.