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The current generation is v2 mini, which is ~740 kg. It's no smaller than Europe's IRIS2 concept (which are unknown, but can't be heavier than 820 kg—see my sib
by perihelions 2y ago
The current generation is v2 mini, which is ~740 kg. It's no smaller than Europe's IRIS2 concept (which are unknown, but can't be heavier than 820 kg—see my sibling comment).
(And just in case anyone's lost track: SpaceX has already launched over ten times more v2's than the entire (proposed) IRIS2. This is not a case of EU opting to do "fewer, but larger" satellites; they're simply just not competing in the same league).
- esperent 2y agoWell, that brings up two questions: 1. Does the weight of the satellite mean much? The bandwidth/concurrent users etc. is what matters. I know I started this by using the word "small", but I wasn't actually thinking about weight when I wrote that, but rather, capacity. 2. Did the EU itself say anywhere that this is supposed to be competitive with Starlink? Or did the article just frame it that way to gets clicks?