[HN Gopher] SpaceX broke its record for number of launches in a ...
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SpaceX broke its record for number of launches in a year
Author : CharlesW
Score : 20 points
Date : 2023-09-10 19:03 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| marcooliv wrote:
| Who are their customers? Do they have private companies hiring
| them?
| asadotzler wrote:
| This year they launch for USSF, OneWeb, Nasa, SES, SDA,
| Intelsat, ViaSat, Iridium, Axiom, ArabSat, PT Pasifik, ESA,
| Echostar, Maxar Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Jared Isaacman,
| German Intelligence Service, Astranis, Korea Aerospace
| Industries, South Korea, Ovzon, plus several dozen smallsat
| operators and of course SpaceX's own Starlink.
| marcooliv wrote:
| Awesome, thanks for sharing!
| daedalus_j wrote:
| By launch volume they are their own biggest customer with
| Starlink.
|
| However, if Amazon wasn't so up their own ass about not using
| Spacex rockets, they'd probably be buying almost as many
| launches to get their project Kuiper constellation up. If
| they're able to manufacture enough satellites that is.
|
| Which is where the whole "who are their customers" story gets
| interesting. There aren't any customers of spacex rockets who
| do as many launches as Starlink does, because the industry
| hasn't yet caught up to the launch capabilities spacex
| provides. But they launch for a number of governments, as well
| as commercial companies.
|
| And not just satellites, but manned missions too! Axiom space
| has flown non-governmental missions to the ISS, and is planning
| their own space station. The inspiration 4 mission was a
| privately-purchased free-flight with only civilians onboard,
| and was the furthest away any human had been from earth since
| STS-103 in 1999, at 380 miles.
|
| The world is just starting to catch up to the capabilites
| offered by modern launch companies!
| [deleted]
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| If Starlink subscribers are (eventually) paying for the non-
| government for-profit side of launch services (and there is
| at least one competing network being built to compete with
| it), what are the economics of that project? How many
| customers can be served by satellites like these, and how
| much do you have to charge each customer to make those
| systems profitable?
|
| ETA: I know a simple answer is something like "all
| residential broadband use" but I assume in practice there are
| some technical limits that cap the number of
| customers/bandwidth that can be delivered.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| > _"if Amazon wasn 't so up their own ass about not using
| Spacex rockets"_
|
| Amazons entire company model is to create businesses that it
| needs for itself 1st, and then sell the excess capacity.
|
| Why change now by using SpaceX?
| avmich wrote:
| Wait till Starship will start flying.
|
| It's a known Musk's statement that Starship launch will be
| cheaper (so called "flyaway cost") than Falcon 1. While this
| remains to be seen, a lot is done in that area which reduces
| costs of flying hardware since it's reused, reduces operational
| expenses on Earth, since the stages are supposed to fly back to
| Mechazilla, and what remains is fuel cost. Not only fuel cost, of
| course - but many other large expenses are compensated by design.
| And the fuel is relatively cheap, so - if all goes, as Palpatin
| says, according to plan - flights will be cheaper and may be more
| numerous, partially because they're cheaper.
| [deleted]
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| SpaceX has made rocket launches routine and boring. People only
| take note when a test rocket blows up.
| KyleBerezin wrote:
| It amazes me that I now find rocket landings ordinary.
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