Comment on [deleted]

• FaceDeer@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Because they launch them in large batches using a reusable rocket, so it doesn't actually cost much. They did work out the economics of Starlink before they started building the system.

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  • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Also, most of their starlink launches are done when someone else is paying for a launch too. Rarely do they have a launch that doesn’t have mass or volume left over, and they just shove starlink sats into that as a secondary payload.

    Elon is dumb as fuck with a lot of decisions, but Gwen shotwell knows what the fuck she’s doing.

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    • ThePrivacyPolicy@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      This is incorrect unless you’re providing a source. I follow several space need sites and they do dedicated launches. Here’s an article even showing the payload setup - which fills the cargo bay. spaceflightnow.com/…/next-spacex-launch-to-deploy…

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  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    When they worked out those details they also thought they would have 20,000,000 subscribers before now and not just 2,000,000

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    • FaceDeer@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      They are nevertheless already profitable, and they haven't even begun using Starship to launch satellites yet.

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      • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        All that sweet gov’t funding doesn’t hurt the bottom line.

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      • zoe@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        i thought why didn’t they just use Falcon Heavy (64 of payload to LEO) but it seems to be too risky and costly (99million$ per launch?, cost in house probably (factual number) 60 million? ). On the other hand, a Falcon 9 (22 tons to LEO, would cost 35 million $ in house (factual) ), but launching and spreading the payload among 3 separate F9’s is less risky and costly than launching aboard the FH, i wonder how much Starship would save on launches

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• Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Because they launch these alongside paying customer payloads.

  Starlink is FAR from the only thing they launch. A customer pays for a payload, and any volume or mass left over in the launch is filled with small starkink sats.

  They have basically $0 on launch costs because of this. They just toss them in when they have someone else paying for the rocket.

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  • Swim@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    do you sources to back that up?

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  • xortingen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I remember that this was their plan at the beginning but i’m not sure if they actually ever did it.

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