There is a Reddit post about the article in which the author of the WSJ article answers questions [1]. He won't reveal where he got the information or if he had permission to report on these numbers, but it seems like a leak.
The SpaceX internet service isn't just about building a new product- it's about smoothing demand for SpaceX's primary business.
Space launches are a high-variability industry. Sometimes there's lots of demand, sometimes you lose the ability to launch for 4 months because of a minor accident (or $250m explosion...).
This internet service is a new customer who can smooth demand out. SpaceX sets a goal for launches for a year, and gives the internet company 20% of their launches. If they oversell, some internet launches get cancelled. If they undersell, the internet company buys extra. Either way, booster production remains smooth. Every other customer is afraid of using used boosters? No problem, watch SpaceX use them themselves.
And if the internet thing doesn't turn out to be profitable? Ah well, the capital that financed it probably came from outside anyways.
If the internet isn't profitable then don't they also not smooth out demand , use up money that could be used to improve their rockets and or have actual profit ?
Yes, but my response was in reference to the comment that SpaceX internet endevour investment was similar to paying one credit card with another. In that case, the credit card companies will come knocking. In the SpaceX case, the investors involved with the internet business, if it fails, won't come knocking the same way a credit card company will. They may be entitled to some IP and physical goods, but they can't just ask for their money back, plus interest.
The SpaceX internet service isn't just about building a new product- it's about smoothing demand for SpaceX's primary business.
Space-X's problem is not lack of demand. Their problem is that they can't keep up with their launch backlog. Their latest stall in launches after the blowup on the pad last September cost them about $250 million. The Falcon Heavy is at least four years late. The Brownsville launch site slipped two years.
If the whole first stage reuse thing pans out they could be looking at 1) faster average turnarounds as the reuse customers require less time to service and 2) more reusable hardware than customers willing to fly on certified pre-owned rockets.
If everything goes as planned they will be immensely successful, sure. But when have they ever accomplished any of their plans on schedule? Clients are starting to get tired of SpaceX's wildly overoptimistic forecasting - see AsiaSat switching providers, and that was before the recent failure. A slow estimate you can deliver is better than a fast estimate you can't.
Yes. Here's Space-X's launch manifest.[1] They used to put dates on future launches, but that got to be too embarrassing. Then they just listed them in order of projected launch. Now they're alphabetical.
About half of those could be launched now if Space-X was ready. Some, like ISS resupply missions, are supposed to happen periodically. Most of the satellite launches are waiting on Space-X, not the payload. Space-X already lost Inmarsat, which will use ArianeSpace instead.
Most of the payments are made upfront and for milestones hit. As in a lot of it is paid up. The only reason that works is having the govt as a customer.
The Russians can any day drop their margins and put SpaceX out of business. They have the tech and the track record that SpaceX will take another decade or two to match.
SpaceX is being propped up cause NASA, Boeing, Lockheed et al have become such dinosaurs that they can't do anything by themselves.
Well, this is the best public Russian space forum. Won't get any better in Russian, with all Russian sources.
So - yes, I agree that the information sources are limited. But at least you can try to trace the original sources from posts there.
On the original question, I haven't seen a comparison of actual SpaceX launch prices with actual launch prices used by other launch providers, specifically Russian ones. With Russians it could be useful to check both "commercial" and "federal" launch prices, as the first are driven by market, while second are more driven by actual costs.
There are at least two arguments in favor of ability to keep Russian launches cheap(er).
First if mentioned in John Clark's "Ignition!", where he says that the Russian approach to bigger payload isn't the technology, but just the size of the rocket - with same low-tech as something smaller. So, in other words, technological edges aren't always translating into lower costs in this industry.
Second is Russian's technological edges with kerosene liquid fuel engines. Technologies are well-optimized, including costs, and are the primary used ones for Russian space program. Not solid rockets, not hydrogen - and comparatively little hydrazin-based rockets, at least by the number of launches.
As an aside, solid rockets is perhaps the part that disappointed me most about "Ignition!". I guess it shows its age. Do you know of any reading about their development? Couldn't find much on Wikipedia...
The Russians can absolutely not just drop the margins and put SpaceX out of bushiness. Of course if the Russian state would fully fund everything and over free space access, so could the US. Neither of them will, neither can practically, politically do it. Its a pretty absurd claim, that I have heard nobody make except you.
SpaceX is not being propped up, the get contract because they beat everybody else on price.
> Its a pretty absurd claim, that I have heard nobody make except you.
Nevertheless it's a widely circulated claim in certain groups.
The idea that "SpaceX beats everybody on price" unfortunately got little actual checks. Of course there is the claim, and some support for that, like rocket structure, engines - but not the actual comparisons. SpaceX does wonderful advancements - but just how wonderful and how do they compare with existing offerings on the whole range of parameters, including price, is rarely compared to what SpaceX actually proclaims.
Don't overestimate the cost of older technologies.
> Their problem is that they can't keep up with their launch backlog
Yes and no. The have 6 boosters sitting around that no one is willing to use because they were previously flown. No one will take the risk of going first.
As well, SpaceX could meet that demand by increasing their size, but there is a risk that once their backlog is completed they'd need to scale down again. A customer like the internet service smooths that demand no matter the situation.
Really? I hadn't realized! Please, sources! Fantastic news for SpaceX.
Edit: my point about smoothing demand remains though. If they can double their output without worrying about fluctuations in demand, they'll increase efficiency.
Copy / paste headline into Google. Then click in from from the search results. Google Webmaster Rules require the exact same content delivered to the spider to be delivered to a search user.
In the past it worked best for me when I Googled the article title using Chrome in incognito mode (in case of cookies). For some reason it's never worked for me in Firefox. Most of the time it's not worth the hassle, so I don't jump through hoops anymore to read paywalled articles.
I believe they did eliminate all loopholes for one day to see how it would affect traffic and subscriptions.
I'm able to get this article but not others. I think they might be doing more cross-sectional A/B type tests along this line now, making different articles available open or closed to the google-referral-loophole. Maybe even different access to different IP blocks?
I saw either yours or a similar comment somewhere else on this topic, so I tried it again. It worked on mobile and desktop. Maybe there's something else going on for you like a browser extension that anonymizes your clicks through SERPs? (If there is such a thing) Maybe one that deletes your Referer: header.
Sorry if this is off-topic, but is anyone else having trouble getting around the WSJ paywall? The usual trick of redirecting through Google doesn't work for me any more, even with an incognito window or using another device.
It's been hit or miss for me. Last week I was having issues, and I don't have any with this one. Perhaps it's related to cookies or other browser cache? Or perhaps server-side fingerprinting?
These projections are for, essentially, a $400 billion market value company in eight years.
The $22 some odd billion in operating income they're projecting, would likely make them among the couple dozen most profitable companies in the world (at that point).
I'd be very concerned that they're forecasting what they think they have to hit to get to Mars, rather than what's realistic. Getting even ten million satellite subscribers at $60 or $70 per month in eight years, will be an amazing accomplishment. More likely, unfortunately, is that SpaceX achieves a fraction of these figures by 2025 and struggles to figure out how to afford the push to Mars (NASA co-funding is the likely solution). This goal reminds me of the 500,000 sales goal by Tesla that's due in 24 months (they'll miss that target by at least half). Maybe SpaceX Internet will get to 40 million eventually - it's certainly possible - it'll take a lot longer than eight or nine years however.
SpaceX is one of those companies I could imagine having minor setbacks with a quarter billion dollar annual loss. I could see investors throwing money their way just to be a part of space tech; so long as they aren't completely imploding.
Rant: it's annoying when writers use "quarter of", I guess to make the number sound bigger (in this case, quarter of a billion in losses). Even "half" is a stretch.
Have you read the details of SpaceX's planned internet offering? Existing satellite based internet services have high latency. This is exactly the problem their solution aims to solve.
Erm, can SpaceX solve the issue that the speed-of-light is pretty damn slow?
Geostationary Orbit is 35,000km above the Earth. Light "only" travels at 300,000km per second. That's a minimum latency of ~246 ms per packet, once you go round-trip from Earth -> Satellite -> Earth again.
Remember that starting up a TCP connection is Syn -> Syn-Ack -> Ack, which means a minimum latency of 750ms before a TCP connection is established. You're well into seconds+ before you can view Google's homepage. I guess this part can be sped-up with a smarter satellite.
Anything above 200ms is damn near unplayable for video games IMO.
That's the minimum latency according to current laws of physics. If you lower the orbit below Geostationary, then life starts to get extremely complicated for the people down on the ground. You can't just point your dish in a particular direction in the sky, because the satellite would be moving.
If you had a neighborhood completely clear of trees, maybe you could program a mobile radar dish to rotate with the moving satellites as they move across the sky (Subsynchronous orbit). But this doesn't seem too applicable to most people's home situations.
That's why they plan to launch over 4k satellites into LEO: while each satellite only covers a small area, together they blanket the surface with coverage. Further latency savings are had by having them all communicate with each other with lasers, preventing awkward and unnecessary back-and-forths between ground and satellite in many cases.
> SpaceX wants to launch 4,425 satellites into low-Earth orbits, with altitudes ranging from 715 miles to 823 miles. [0]
Latency won't be an issue. Can't find any information on their plan to solve the second problem - but since they've announced the service already, I've got to believe they've come up with workable solutions.
In principle, low-orbit satellites should be lower latency than copper or fiber over long distance. The speed of light in vacuum being faster than in solids. In addition a satellite network could offer a more direct path (short distance) than intercontinental cables for many locations, further increasing performance.
Kind of depends on where you are coming from. There are many rural areas where other types of services just will not or cannot serve(even cell coverage is non-existent)
Plus these are low earth orbit, so the latency will be less than that of services like Xplorernet
Had a chance to buy some SpaceX stock and passed because I didn't see a path to liquidity with the large capital requirements to get to Mars. Not for everyone, but satellite internet is the ultimate power law play and SpaceX is in a great position to make it a reality. However, even if it is successful, they burn cash for 20 years with no way to cash out.
Perhaps my expectations have simply been skewed by reading about negative billiion dollar incomes in valley companies, but It seems to me that spaceX is doing pretty well to be in the black with such large growth. (other than this year)
It also seems disingenuous to compare spaceX's launch history with that of a 36 year old company (Arianespace)
It was an inspection failure from SpaceX's perspective. The vendor mismanufactured the part initially, but the failure rates of the parts were very low (to the order of several out of a batch of 10000 units), hence they weren't caught in batch testing. Also note that metal performance at cryogenic temperatures is often very different. Certain impurities that are largely harmless at room temperature can cause metals to be completely brittle at 90 kelvin. So testing every single strut would be very expensive, though SpaceX probably does that now regardless.
65 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 140 ms ] threadhttps://www.google.com/amp/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/exclusiv...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/5nqxs9/exclusive_pe...
Space launches are a high-variability industry. Sometimes there's lots of demand, sometimes you lose the ability to launch for 4 months because of a minor accident (or $250m explosion...).
This internet service is a new customer who can smooth demand out. SpaceX sets a goal for launches for a year, and gives the internet company 20% of their launches. If they oversell, some internet launches get cancelled. If they undersell, the internet company buys extra. Either way, booster production remains smooth. Every other customer is afraid of using used boosters? No problem, watch SpaceX use them themselves.
And if the internet thing doesn't turn out to be profitable? Ah well, the capital that financed it probably came from outside anyways.
So like paying one credit card bill with another credit card. Right?
Space-X's problem is not lack of demand. Their problem is that they can't keep up with their launch backlog. Their latest stall in launches after the blowup on the pad last September cost them about $250 million. The Falcon Heavy is at least four years late. The Brownsville launch site slipped two years.
About half of those could be launched now if Space-X was ready. Some, like ISS resupply missions, are supposed to happen periodically. Most of the satellite launches are waiting on Space-X, not the payload. Space-X already lost Inmarsat, which will use ArianeSpace instead.
[1] http://www.spacex.com/missions
http://spacenews.com/inmarsat-shifts-satellite-from-spacex-t...
Inmarsat still has 2 launches on the SpaceX manifest.
Money quote: "Inmarsat is looking forward to continuing to work with SpaceX going forward," the company said in its statement.
The Russians can any day drop their margins and put SpaceX out of business. They have the tech and the track record that SpaceX will take another decade or two to match.
SpaceX is being propped up cause NASA, Boeing, Lockheed et al have become such dinosaurs that they can't do anything by themselves.
This is an argument I haven't heard before. Any sources I can read up on to learn more?
As for the 'tech', yes the Russians have a long and pretty good history with rocketry but SpaceX has technological edges as well.
Having said that, here - http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/forum/forum13/topic2156/?PAGE... - is a table maintained by Russian space forum participant(s). You can dig for more original sources from there.
So - yes, I agree that the information sources are limited. But at least you can try to trace the original sources from posts there.
On the original question, I haven't seen a comparison of actual SpaceX launch prices with actual launch prices used by other launch providers, specifically Russian ones. With Russians it could be useful to check both "commercial" and "federal" launch prices, as the first are driven by market, while second are more driven by actual costs.
Can SpaceX prices be compared to Russian ones?
I.e. "federal" prices are likely subsidized. What's the point using them?
First if mentioned in John Clark's "Ignition!", where he says that the Russian approach to bigger payload isn't the technology, but just the size of the rocket - with same low-tech as something smaller. So, in other words, technological edges aren't always translating into lower costs in this industry.
Second is Russian's technological edges with kerosene liquid fuel engines. Technologies are well-optimized, including costs, and are the primary used ones for Russian space program. Not solid rockets, not hydrogen - and comparatively little hydrazin-based rockets, at least by the number of launches.
SpaceX is not being propped up, the get contract because they beat everybody else on price.
Nevertheless it's a widely circulated claim in certain groups.
The idea that "SpaceX beats everybody on price" unfortunately got little actual checks. Of course there is the claim, and some support for that, like rocket structure, engines - but not the actual comparisons. SpaceX does wonderful advancements - but just how wonderful and how do they compare with existing offerings on the whole range of parameters, including price, is rarely compared to what SpaceX actually proclaims.
Don't overestimate the cost of older technologies.
Yes and no. The have 6 boosters sitting around that no one is willing to use because they were previously flown. No one will take the risk of going first.
As well, SpaceX could meet that demand by increasing their size, but there is a risk that once their backlog is completed they'd need to scale down again. A customer like the internet service smooths that demand no matter the situation.
Edit: my point about smoothing demand remains though. If they can double their output without worrying about fluctuations in demand, they'll increase efficiency.
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.
So what's the workaround? The web link doesn't work anymore.
I'm able to get this article but not others. I think they might be doing more cross-sectional A/B type tests along this line now, making different articles available open or closed to the google-referral-loophole. Maybe even different access to different IP blocks?
The $22 some odd billion in operating income they're projecting, would likely make them among the couple dozen most profitable companies in the world (at that point).
I'd be very concerned that they're forecasting what they think they have to hit to get to Mars, rather than what's realistic. Getting even ten million satellite subscribers at $60 or $70 per month in eight years, will be an amazing accomplishment. More likely, unfortunately, is that SpaceX achieves a fraction of these figures by 2025 and struggles to figure out how to afford the push to Mars (NASA co-funding is the likely solution). This goal reminds me of the 500,000 sales goal by Tesla that's due in 24 months (they'll miss that target by at least half). Maybe SpaceX Internet will get to 40 million eventually - it's certainly possible - it'll take a lot longer than eight or nine years however.
Rain kills it, too.
Geostationary Orbit is 35,000km above the Earth. Light "only" travels at 300,000km per second. That's a minimum latency of ~246 ms per packet, once you go round-trip from Earth -> Satellite -> Earth again.
Remember that starting up a TCP connection is Syn -> Syn-Ack -> Ack, which means a minimum latency of 750ms before a TCP connection is established. You're well into seconds+ before you can view Google's homepage. I guess this part can be sped-up with a smarter satellite.
Anything above 200ms is damn near unplayable for video games IMO.
That's the minimum latency according to current laws of physics. If you lower the orbit below Geostationary, then life starts to get extremely complicated for the people down on the ground. You can't just point your dish in a particular direction in the sky, because the satellite would be moving.
If you had a neighborhood completely clear of trees, maybe you could program a mobile radar dish to rotate with the moving satellites as they move across the sky (Subsynchronous orbit). But this doesn't seem too applicable to most people's home situations.
Latency won't be an issue. Can't find any information on their plan to solve the second problem - but since they've announced the service already, I've got to believe they've come up with workable solutions.
[0]: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/spacex...
Latency aim is hence 25-35ms.
>You can't just point your dish in a particular direction in the sky, because the satellite would be moving....
Plus these are low earth orbit, so the latency will be less than that of services like Xplorernet
It also seems disingenuous to compare spaceX's launch history with that of a 36 year old company (Arianespace)
Some of the struts they bought were 1/5 as strong as specced. I wouldn't call that an inspection failure.