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Maybe it tells you a lot about the real commercial demand for this.
by throwaway132448 11mo ago
Maybe it tells you a lot about the real commercial demand for this.
- Rover222 11mo agoSpaceX launches 90% of the payload of the entire world to orbit now.
- bloudermilk 11mo agoWild! Does that count their own Starlink payloads? Curious what this number looks like when you only look at the launch customer market.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> Curious what this number looks like when you only look at the launch customer market SpaceX makes 50%+ margins on its launches, which are booked out years in advance, for a reason.
- manquer 11mo ago> booked out How so ? F9 launches are available anytime a customer wants them. SpaceX will bump down a Starlink launch to accommodate a paying customer, All they would really need would be the payload assembly time?
- dotnet00 11mo agoThey're booked out years in advance only in the sense that bookings are sorted out years before the payload is ready to fly. SpaceX has emphasized that they're capable of swapping out Starlink launches with a commercial payload if needed on short notice.
- madamelic 11mo agoThe launch count of SpaceX per year compared to the rest of the world is quite large. SpaceX in 2025 has launched 134 times. Everyone else in the entire world has launched 115 times combined, including other US companies. SpaceX launches a lot of stuff very often. EDIT: Originally meant to do 2024 but accidentally read the wrong bar. Regardless, this holds for most years.
- NetMageSCW 11mo ago142 F9 launches, 72% Starlink.
- adastra22 11mo agoMeta point: why does that matter? They launch 90% of the demand for payload to orbit. Some of that demand is from a vertically integrated part of the company. It is still part of industrial demand, given that Starlink is profitable already.
- throwaway132448 11mo agoI’m not sure how that’s relevant? Or do you think it’s typical for valuable markets to field no other competitors for a decade in the 21st century?
- buu700 11mo agoIt doesn't seem that atypical when extremely high capex and proprietary R&D are moats. Off the top of my head, the semiconductor industry looks broadly similar right now and the fusion industry might end up looking similar for a while.
- throwaway132448 11mo agoOnly small parts of the semiconductor industry at the very cutting edge even remotely resemble that. And that’s technology with outcomes (I.e. process nodes) that are genuinely new and have never been done before. What’s being accomplished now in space are outcomes that were accomplished before PCs existed, so the idea of it being insurmountable R&D doesn’t hold. It’s very telling that the only “commercially viable” launch providers are billionaire trophy assets with induced demand from a heavy slice of government sponsorship and self dealing.
- Rover222 11mo agoSaying there's no market demand for cheaper launchers, when the company with the cheapest large launchers has cornered the market makes no sense. That was my only point.
- 7e 11mo agoHow much of that is self dealing Starlink?
- TheAlchemist 11mo agoMost of which was for Starlink. Not saying it's not an achievement - it is. But if you exclude their own payload, the picture is somewhat different.
- panick21_ 11mo agoEven if you exclude Starlink SpaceX is overwhelmingly dominant. The stuff they don't launch is mostly China and Russia and Europe they can't compete for.
- dotnet00 11mo agoBlue has similar commercial demand from Amazon (it's easy to forget given Bezos' ownership, but they're actually separate companies).
- TheAlchemist 11mo agoOh, wasn't aware that Amazon is launching something to space - what are they launching ?
- dotnet00 11mo agoTheir own internet megaconstellation, called Project Kuiper until earlier today when they renamed it to Project Leo. It's actually the current biggest commercial launch customer, Starlink is internal to SpaceX, but Kuiper/Leo has bought many launches with ULA, SpaceX and Arianespace (and Blue Origin, of course).
- gnabgib 11mo agoKuiper (now Leo): 2020 Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX (95 points, 126 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24209940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24209940 2021 Amazon's Kuiper responds to SpaceX on FCC request (72 points, 86 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26056670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26056670 2023 Amazon launches Project Kuiper satellite internet prototypes (75 poins, 73 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37813711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37813711 2025 Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Starlink (58 points, 69 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43827083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43827083
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]