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IMO, one of the central problems is the cost of launching stuff into space. Today, SpaceX offers world leading low prices to launch satellites: $4 m / tonne[1]

IMO, one of the central problems is the cost of launching stuff into space. Today, SpaceX offers world leading low prices to launch satellites: $4 m / tonne[1]. But Starlink has access to launch at cost, which is $0.86 m / tonne[2]. Which is a huge advantage when launching an enormous number of satellites. One thing to keep in mind, especially for these LEO constellations: the lifetime of these satellites is 5-10 years. Which means the operators can never stop launching. It's an ongoing operational cost. For smaller operators like OneWeb, they don't have to launch that often, but for a serious competitor like Kuiper, they'll be constantly launching some satellite every year. IMO, launch cost will be a problem even for China. The cost of an LEO constellation is so high that even if it's partially subsidized by the military it'll be a serious cost for the country. That could change pretty soon, though - various companies and organizations in China are aggressively working on getting reusable rockets working. --- 1. $70 m / 17.5 tonnes == $4 m / tonne 2. $15 m[3] / 17.5 tonnes == $0.86 / tonne 3. The $15 m number is not public info, but it is widely believed that it is in the correct ballpark.

nrmitchi 2y ago
In the past this at-cost dealing would have been considered monopolistic enough to force divestment (ie, almost exactly the same as Boeing and United Airlines divestment due to the Air Mail Act). > Air Mail Act of 1934: > This legislation prohibited the common ownership of airlines and aircraft manufacturers to prevent conflicts of interest and promote fair competition in the aviation industry.
- nordsieck 2y ago
  > In the past this at-cost dealing would have been considered monopolistic enough to force divestment I guess we'll see what happens. As with most things monopoly related, the critical fight is over how to appropriately define the market. Presumably SpaceX would argue that Starlink is an ISP and that it just happens to use satellites to deliver its service. And if that doesn't work, then it's a satellite internet provider, but competes with both LEO and GEO services. If it ever goes to court, it'll be interesting to see how such an argument holds up.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    For obvious reasons I think it's pretty safe to say we can count on at least the next four years of zero regulation or government scrutiny of any company Musk is involved in, monopoly-related or otherwise.
    - starspangled 2y ago
      You believe the FAA, FCC, OHSA, EPA, FDA, etc., will cease to regulate SpaceX, Tesla, Nuralink operations? That seems pretty outlandish.
      - haliskerbas 2y ago
        Kind of yes. I mean Trumps Supreme Court changes the rules because they interpreted something differently. So any political or government agency is all vibes based to me. Anything other interpretation is rose tinted.
      - btilly 2y ago
        Elon Musk was just appointed by Donald Trump as being in charge of firing half of the government. He won't likely do that. But any regulator who gets in his way? Yeah, not many will volunteer for "the firing line."
        ImJamal 2y ago
        He hasn't been appointed to any government agency since DOGE is not a government agency. DOGE has no power to fire anybody. All they can do is make recommendations.
        starspangled 2y ago
        I really don't know what Musk has been appointed to do and it's a laughably blatant conflict of interest, but conflicts of interest seem to be what the entire government is built on. Politicians involved with energy and military companies are involved in decisions to go to war, generals get lucrative consultancy jobs at military firms, congress makes billions of dollars insider trading, foreign aid somehow finds its way funneled through "charities" owned by the ruling class, politicians cosy with medical companies block real healthcare reform, etc. Musk isn't anything new or different here. The idea that he'll just be above the law is fearmongering hyperbole though. Sure he'll get favorable treatment and be able to push his agenda to degrees well out of reach of us commoners. No more than if he'd just stayed in the shadows and bought his politicians and judges and bureaucrats and generals like a normal billionaire.
- ulfw 2y ago
  Now that Starlink owner Musk effectively runs the US government from Trump's ear no divestment of any kind will happen that negatively impacts Mr. Musk
- zo1 2y ago
  And this is why we can't have nice, cheap things. Instead we usually get that "cost" pressure solved by giving it on a silver platter to worker-rights-leading China. There has to be a better way to prevent abuses in the market without crippling it. But following from that, at what point did we assume this kind of (monopolistic) abuse would happen automatically anyways? I haven't seen it yet, so let's maybe hold off till it happens? Maybe one day X will host all sorts of government-unapproved content on satellites that are free from US jurisdiction and control? @Elon, do this now, they'll come for you eventually.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    it is a fascinating outcome when a vertically integrated monopoly is the cheapest option, and best consumer value. The challenge is figuring out if the firm is really providing the best value, or just a local minimum.
    - modeless 2y ago
      My understanding is Standard Oil provided good service for low prices in most cases. It's not always the case that monopolies provide super expensive or bad service.
      - MichaelZuo 2y ago
        Yes, hence why it lasted for over a decade even with >>50% of the market in many jurisdictions.
    - DanielHB 2y ago
      > vertically integrated monopoly is the cheapest option I would like to remind you that you can use google, gmail, google maps, google drive and a bunch of other services for free (and the best consumer value even if accounting for their data gathering).
sudosysgen 2y ago
It's not actually necessary to use reusable rockets to get at a similar cost per launch. Long March 5 is at 2.8M$/ton (so less than SpaceX commercial price). Also, 15M$/launch is not widely believed to be correct. There is much creative accounting SpaceX could be doing with Starlink (is at-cost account for booster depreciation? If so how, since we don't know how much reuse a booster can be expected to give? Or is it just the cost of refurbishment?), and since the last statement where Elon claimed 1000$ per kg actual cost, SpaceX had to raise their prices, claiming it was due to inflation - is that accurate? Most estimates I've seen are that the cost is 20-30M/launch, which would instead give 1.1-1.7M/ton. So, it's a big advantage but not an insurmountable one.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Boosters don’t depreciate. They are actually considered more valuable with more successful launches.
  - quailfarmer 2y ago
    They do depreciate, even if the later launches are more valuable, that increase in value is marginal compared to the per-launch capital cost. Airplanes, cars, buildings, everything depreciates.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      What do you mean by per-launch capital cost? Maintenance? The increase in value of a F9 booster after use is more than the near-negligible per-launch maintenance cost.
      - michaelt 2y ago
        "Depreciation" and "capital cost" reflect the fact the vehicle has a maximum life, even given maintenance. Imagine if I buy a $200,000 Lamborghini which, with regular servicing, will survive 100,000 miles. That means for every mile I drive, not only am I paying for fuel, and insurance, and tyres, and servicing - I'm also paying, on average, $2/mile in depreciation. And sure, the "true" value chart might not be linear. Maybe there'll be a sharp drop when the car ceases to be brand new, or a bump in value when it becomes a classic. But so long as it's worth $200k at 0 miles and $0 at 100k miles, the average cost of a mile must be $2.
est31 2y ago
Is it really required to be an LEO constellation? It would certainly be good, so that eventually the satellites deorbit and contribute less to Kesseler syndrome risk. But some nation state might chose to not care about that and deploy at higher and more stable orbits.
- sneak 2y ago
  Yes. We had satellite internet services before and they sucked bad due to latency. Space is big and light is slow. Also, more people per satellite, so less capacity per person.
- martyvis 2y ago
  LEO means less RF power and lower latency.
- Sander_Marechal 2y ago
  Higher orbits also mean more latency and slower speeds.
punnerud 2y ago
If China where to compete they also need LEO satellites that is just over China for a couple of minutes, that have to take a long round trip around the word to give a couple of minutes access again. That’s why you need a huge constellation. It’s either selling to the whole world or nothing. If you don’t want to go for slow GEO stationary.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  I suspect a China-based constellation could probably serve most of africa, much of asia, most of south america, and some of the middle east. Maybe Russia too. Not North America or Europe. In fact, it probably has similar coverage population-wise to what a USA based company can offer.
hkdobrev 2y ago
When Starship starts launching customer satellites, it's possible that even the price for customers would be cheap enough to launch and maintain a LEO constellation. But competing requires massive innovation in cheap and fast production of satellites which are very energy efficient and highly capable. Especially, the technology for starshield protecting against cyber warfare in space and the direct to cell capability. This would be the main reason for not emerging a viable competitor for some time. SpaceX has innovation advantage in the satellites, manufacturing, dishes, base stations, software apart from the launch capability.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Yeah in theory China is the biggest potential competitor, having both a space program, a state deeply involved in business, etc. But their space tech is archaic in comparison, using really nasty fuels to blast stuff into space. The reusability of SpaceX's rockets is a feat that is years ahead of the competition - it's been nearly ten years since the first recovered Falcon 9 booster in a commercial launch if my quick fact check is accurate, and no other competitor, private or governmental, has managed it yet. And in a few years they will have a reusable vessel capable of launching 100 tonnes into LEO, at a fraction of the development and launch cost of e.g. the Space Shuttle. Unless of course Musk's political fuckery ends up dismantling SpaceX. But, Musk didn't do the engineering on these feats, so the knowledge and patents will continue on if he doesn't.
- maxglute 2y ago
  PRC didn't take reusables seriously until a few years ago, really when strategic value of starlink became obvious. They're already making relatively quick progress, as in the expected faster than original catchup mode progress. Ultimately the issue with simping for SpaceX is that it's still an American company working at American scale. People are conflating SpaceX doing cheap payload advantage at modest scale for actual scale. There's like <20 F9s doing more than 50% of global launches, 80% including starlink. People see 50% and 80%, but ignore that <20 is rookie numbers. Frankly no reason PRC won't have 100 reusables fleet _IF_ demand justifies it (TBH only real justification after megaconstellations is space weaponization). And then like with all PRC catchup, they'll put more than SpaceX lifetime aggregate payload in a few years, and then it won't even be close. Sure Elon can wank about starfactory building 1 vehicle per day, but if there's strategic reasons for it, PRC will be able to build 5 per day at less cost once they sort out the tech stack.
BurningFrog 2y ago
> But Starlink has access to launch at cost, which is $0.86 m / tonne[2]. Which is a huge advantage when launching an enormous number of satellites. Starlink is a division of SpaceX. So what price it charges/pays itself is only an internal bookkeeping artifact.

nrmitchi 2y ago

In the past this at-cost dealing would have been considered monopolistic enough to force divestment (ie, almost exactly the same as Boeing and United Airlines divestment due to the Air Mail Act). > Air Mail Act of 1934: > This legislation prohibited the common ownership of airlines and aircraft manufacturers to prevent conflicts of interest and promote fair competition in the aviation industry.

nordsieck 2y ago
> In the past this at-cost dealing would have been considered monopolistic enough to force divestment I guess we'll see what happens. As with most things monopoly related, the critical fight is over how to appropriately define the market. Presumably SpaceX would argue that Starlink is an ISP and that it just happens to use satellites to deliver its service. And if that doesn't work, then it's a satellite internet provider, but competes with both LEO and GEO services. If it ever goes to court, it'll be interesting to see how such an argument holds up.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  For obvious reasons I think it's pretty safe to say we can count on at least the next four years of zero regulation or government scrutiny of any company Musk is involved in, monopoly-related or otherwise.
  - starspangled 2y ago
    You believe the FAA, FCC, OHSA, EPA, FDA, etc., will cease to regulate SpaceX, Tesla, Nuralink operations? That seems pretty outlandish.
    - haliskerbas 2y ago
      Kind of yes. I mean Trumps Supreme Court changes the rules because they interpreted something differently. So any political or government agency is all vibes based to me. Anything other interpretation is rose tinted.
    - btilly 2y ago
      Elon Musk was just appointed by Donald Trump as being in charge of firing half of the government. He won't likely do that. But any regulator who gets in his way? Yeah, not many will volunteer for "the firing line."
      - ImJamal 2y ago
        He hasn't been appointed to any government agency since DOGE is not a government agency. DOGE has no power to fire anybody. All they can do is make recommendations.
      - starspangled 2y ago
        I really don't know what Musk has been appointed to do and it's a laughably blatant conflict of interest, but conflicts of interest seem to be what the entire government is built on. Politicians involved with energy and military companies are involved in decisions to go to war, generals get lucrative consultancy jobs at military firms, congress makes billions of dollars insider trading, foreign aid somehow finds its way funneled through "charities" owned by the ruling class, politicians cosy with medical companies block real healthcare reform, etc. Musk isn't anything new or different here. The idea that he'll just be above the law is fearmongering hyperbole though. Sure he'll get favorable treatment and be able to push his agenda to degrees well out of reach of us commoners. No more than if he'd just stayed in the shadows and bought his politicians and judges and bureaucrats and generals like a normal billionaire.
ulfw 2y ago
Now that Starlink owner Musk effectively runs the US government from Trump's ear no divestment of any kind will happen that negatively impacts Mr. Musk
zo1 2y ago
And this is why we can't have nice, cheap things. Instead we usually get that "cost" pressure solved by giving it on a silver platter to worker-rights-leading China. There has to be a better way to prevent abuses in the market without crippling it. But following from that, at what point did we assume this kind of (monopolistic) abuse would happen automatically anyways? I haven't seen it yet, so let's maybe hold off till it happens? Maybe one day X will host all sorts of government-unapproved content on satellites that are free from US jurisdiction and control? @Elon, do this now, they'll come for you eventually.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  it is a fascinating outcome when a vertically integrated monopoly is the cheapest option, and best consumer value. The challenge is figuring out if the firm is really providing the best value, or just a local minimum.
  - modeless 2y ago
    My understanding is Standard Oil provided good service for low prices in most cases. It's not always the case that monopolies provide super expensive or bad service.
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      Yes, hence why it lasted for over a decade even with >>50% of the market in many jurisdictions.
  - DanielHB 2y ago
    > vertically integrated monopoly is the cheapest option I would like to remind you that you can use google, gmail, google maps, google drive and a bunch of other services for free (and the best consumer value even if accounting for their data gathering).

sudosysgen 2y ago

It's not actually necessary to use reusable rockets to get at a similar cost per launch. Long March 5 is at 2.8M$/ton (so less than SpaceX commercial price). Also, 15M$/launch is not widely believed to be correct. There is much creative accounting SpaceX could be doing with Starlink (is at-cost account for booster depreciation? If so how, since we don't know how much reuse a booster can be expected to give? Or is it just the cost of refurbishment?), and since the last statement where Elon claimed 1000$ per kg actual cost, SpaceX had to raise their prices, claiming it was due to inflation - is that accurate? Most estimates I've seen are that the cost is 20-30M/launch, which would instead give 1.1-1.7M/ton. So, it's a big advantage but not an insurmountable one.

adastra22 2y ago
Boosters don’t depreciate. They are actually considered more valuable with more successful launches.
- quailfarmer 2y ago
  They do depreciate, even if the later launches are more valuable, that increase in value is marginal compared to the per-launch capital cost. Airplanes, cars, buildings, everything depreciates.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    What do you mean by per-launch capital cost? Maintenance? The increase in value of a F9 booster after use is more than the near-negligible per-launch maintenance cost.
    - michaelt 2y ago
      "Depreciation" and "capital cost" reflect the fact the vehicle has a maximum life, even given maintenance. Imagine if I buy a $200,000 Lamborghini which, with regular servicing, will survive 100,000 miles. That means for every mile I drive, not only am I paying for fuel, and insurance, and tyres, and servicing - I'm also paying, on average, $2/mile in depreciation. And sure, the "true" value chart might not be linear. Maybe there'll be a sharp drop when the car ceases to be brand new, or a bump in value when it becomes a classic. But so long as it's worth $200k at 0 miles and $0 at 100k miles, the average cost of a mile must be $2.

est31 2y ago

Is it really required to be an LEO constellation? It would certainly be good, so that eventually the satellites deorbit and contribute less to Kesseler syndrome risk. But some nation state might chose to not care about that and deploy at higher and more stable orbits.

sneak 2y ago
Yes. We had satellite internet services before and they sucked bad due to latency. Space is big and light is slow. Also, more people per satellite, so less capacity per person.
martyvis 2y ago
LEO means less RF power and lower latency.
Sander_Marechal 2y ago
Higher orbits also mean more latency and slower speeds.

punnerud 2y ago

If China where to compete they also need LEO satellites that is just over China for a couple of minutes, that have to take a long round trip around the word to give a couple of minutes access again. That’s why you need a huge constellation. It’s either selling to the whole world or nothing. If you don’t want to go for slow GEO stationary.

londons_explore 2y ago
I suspect a China-based constellation could probably serve most of africa, much of asia, most of south america, and some of the middle east. Maybe Russia too. Not North America or Europe. In fact, it probably has similar coverage population-wise to what a USA based company can offer.

hkdobrev 2y ago

When Starship starts launching customer satellites, it's possible that even the price for customers would be cheap enough to launch and maintain a LEO constellation. But competing requires massive innovation in cheap and fast production of satellites which are very energy efficient and highly capable. Especially, the technology for starshield protecting against cyber warfare in space and the direct to cell capability. This would be the main reason for not emerging a viable competitor for some time. SpaceX has innovation advantage in the satellites, manufacturing, dishes, base stations, software apart from the launch capability.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

Yeah in theory China is the biggest potential competitor, having both a space program, a state deeply involved in business, etc. But their space tech is archaic in comparison, using really nasty fuels to blast stuff into space. The reusability of SpaceX's rockets is a feat that is years ahead of the competition - it's been nearly ten years since the first recovered Falcon 9 booster in a commercial launch if my quick fact check is accurate, and no other competitor, private or governmental, has managed it yet. And in a few years they will have a reusable vessel capable of launching 100 tonnes into LEO, at a fraction of the development and launch cost of e.g. the Space Shuttle. Unless of course Musk's political fuckery ends up dismantling SpaceX. But, Musk didn't do the engineering on these feats, so the knowledge and patents will continue on if he doesn't.

maxglute 2y ago
PRC didn't take reusables seriously until a few years ago, really when strategic value of starlink became obvious. They're already making relatively quick progress, as in the expected faster than original catchup mode progress. Ultimately the issue with simping for SpaceX is that it's still an American company working at American scale. People are conflating SpaceX doing cheap payload advantage at modest scale for actual scale. There's like <20 F9s doing more than 50% of global launches, 80% including starlink. People see 50% and 80%, but ignore that <20 is rookie numbers. Frankly no reason PRC won't have 100 reusables fleet _IF_ demand justifies it (TBH only real justification after megaconstellations is space weaponization). And then like with all PRC catchup, they'll put more than SpaceX lifetime aggregate payload in a few years, and then it won't even be close. Sure Elon can wank about starfactory building 1 vehicle per day, but if there's strategic reasons for it, PRC will be able to build 5 per day at less cost once they sort out the tech stack.

BurningFrog 2y ago

> But Starlink has access to launch at cost, which is $0.86 m / tonne[2]. Which is a huge advantage when launching an enormous number of satellites. Starlink is a division of SpaceX. So what price it charges/pays itself is only an internal bookkeeping artifact.