Starlink was never a viable business prospect. It never will be. Anybody who signed up to Starlink was just waiting for this to happen without knowing it.
It is a viable business product, latest estimates are Starlink will bring in a revenue of 12 billion in 2025 with about 2 billion being profit. Of course it’s not a public company so we don’t get official numbers, but you’re flat out wrong.
When it’s all finished, and operating, that’s when the next Democratic government should take it from him. One person, especially one demonstrated to be mentally unstable, should not control the world’s Internet.
perpetually burning up satellites in the atmosphere is a pretty shitty business though.
Exactly. The business isn’t remotely sustainable. All that money being invested into new satellites will, by next year, need to be invested constantly to keep the network at the same size.
Starlink needs run as fast as it can, just to stay in the same place, and the investment money is finite when people see it’s not going to grow.
What was the life expectancy of each satellite? I think I read something like 5 to 7 years. If we were talking about dozens of satellites I would say no problem, but thousands?
On https://satellitemap.space/ you can see the numbers pretty accurately under “status over time”. The current launch cadence is steady since mid 2022, and the burn rate is climbing to match. It seems to have a 5 year delay, but it’s possible the new satellites will last a little longer.
Which means that by mid 2027 earliest and mid 2029, the current “investment” in “growth” will have become the regular maintenance spending. And up to that point, maintenance costs will continue to climb to consume the entire investment budget.
Starlink is already making more money than it costs to expand and operate, you are wrong. This is sustainable (financially) and counter to your beliefs over the next 10 years I’d wager the starlink network will balloon to many times its current size, 20,000 plus satellites in orbit.
SpaceX is the most successful company/entity in history that does space launch, it doesn’t cost them a whole lot of money to launch new batches of Satellites and that cost will continue to decrease as the Falcon 9 program continues to improve and as starship becomes operational over the next few years.
Starlink is already making more money than it costs to expand and operate, you are wrong.
Honestly, there are no realistic, reliable figures either way. There are plenty of guesstimates, and they show a profit now, but that with a very significant investment in growth. And that investment comes in large part from external sources, which means that when the happy time ends and the satellites fail at the same rate as they’re currently launches, they need to either make WAY more money, or rely on external funding.
and counter to your beliefs over the next 10 years I’d wager the starlink network will balloon to many times its current size, 20,000 plus satellites
Definitely, they’re on track to stabilize at around 36.000 with the current launch cadence. That’s where every new satellite is a replacement. But that doesn’t count money, which is the problem, and will be more of a problem when expenses replace growth.
and that cost will continue to decrease as the Falcon 9 program continues to improve and as starship becomes operational over the next few years.
Eh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Falcon 9 costs haven’t gone down in years. Falcon Heavy is supposed to be cheaper per ton, yet somehow is almost never used for Starlink or anything else. Starship isn’t even projected to be cheaper than Falcon 9 (I except in what are basically ads).
I won’t debate more on the finances because, like you said, they’re a private company and we can’t know for sure. However, reliable public estimates show starlink is profitable already or will be very soon.
Falcon Heavy is supposed to be cheaper per ton, yet somehow is almost never used for Starlink or anything else
Starlink already about maxes out the fairing capacity of the Falcon Rockets, so allowing more weight doesn’t do much besides increase cost. Same with other companies buying launch services from SpaceX. Usually they don’t need the extra capacity or margins heavy offers, although I wish me got more launches, they are always a treat to watch.
Starship isn’t even projected to be cheaper than Falcon 9
Maybe not, but that wasn’t my main point. They are already spending money on Starship and that isn’t going to change. It’s just soon they will actually be able to use that money they’re spending to make more money by launching more starlinks. With the significantly larger payload capacity, they will also be able to launch way sats per launch and also more capable sats with higher bandwidth or more onboard propellants for a longer operational life
I expect Starship will be used to launch many batches of Starlink while the vehicle is still in testing and expected to fail on occasion, If you think about it in that capacity, the launches are free since they are already going to be doing test launches.
I mean, ultimately, that’s probably inevitable. We need to decide as a species whether we actually want to have a future in space in a big way. If you actually want to see a future where humanity spreads across the solar system, we’re going to need a vast infrastructure in orbit. That’s true no matter who is building that infrastructure. So…is it worth giving up that future just for the sake of ground-based astronomy? I would say no. Especially because the same technology and economies that lets you launch enough birds to ruin ground based astronomy also allows you to launch absurd numbers of space based astronomical telescopes.
That seems like a fair trade really. Again, this is just a limitation of the technology. Do you want to see a future where there actually are millions of human beings living and working off Earth? Then we’re going to have to give up ground based astronomy. Making low-visibility satellites can help a bit, but it’s a fundamentally intractable problem. And again, this is true regardless of who is building that big space infrastructure.
First, you don’t need tens of thousands of internet satellite in LEO to have an ambitious space program. The current mega-constellations are just a way for billionaires to build a new monopoly, and control internet access. It has nothing to do with getting humanity in the stars or whatever.
Second, when are all these space telescopes coming? Launch cost is a very small fraction of building a space telescope because they are fragile, very large and complex pieces of equipment and getting them on a rocket is hard.
Third, we will never see millions of human in outer space in our lifetimes. Earth is our only chance, at least for the overwhelming majority of us. So let’s protect it from sociopath billionaires.
I just generally doubt anything Musk does because of his track record. However, is there a particular reason why Starlink is inherently not viable? Could a competent person do it or it is fundamentally flawed? To put it another way is it cybertruck bad (yes people want electric cars but not a barely driveable dumpster held together with glue) or hyperloop bad (physics said no)?
The physics of it mean you basically have to be constantly launching new satellites to replace the 5 year old ones de orbiting. Further, it will also be disadvantaged to anything closer with ability to choose a cable medium. All this adds up to the most expensive infrastructure that exclusively targets very low population density areas and/or areas too poor to afford good Internet. The people that could afford to sustain this can afford to move somewhere with a bit more infrastructure or at least within reach of a terrestrial tower and have an even better result.
The physics of it mean you basically have to be constantly launching new satellites to replace the 5 year old ones de orbiting.
I mean…so what if the birds only last 5-7 years? My only real concern is that they’re not made with environmentally damaging materials. Let them fall over the South Pacific and be atomized on the way down. It really depends on how cheaply you can launch them. All infrastructure has a finite life span. 5-7 years is lower than most terrestrial infrastructure, but this is all a function of launch costs. If those can be made cheap enough, the concept is perfectly viable.
It is closer to a hyper loop system. For the internet to have low enough latency it has to be put in quite a low earth orbit. That means we need more satlights to make coverage, ballooning costs. However that is not the part that kills it, it is that it is in such low orbit we can expect air resistance to significantly degrade orbits. There are too many satilights to reasonably boost them all, and when they start to degrade it will be too fast to reasonably replace them all.
And they first batches of the current network are at their end of life. That means that with the same level of investment, growth will slow down, which is terrible for venture capital.
And orbital mechanics is a bitch. You can’t add more speed to a certain area (like a city with a lot of people) and less to the empty ocean. So there’s a harsh density limit to your subscribes.
I mean, the need for internet satellite is mostly in low density areas. In big cities fiber will always be cheaper and more reliable (except maybe in the US where operators are allowed to fuck you).
I hate Musk and I guess Starlink is squeezing their monopoly position right now, but I’m not 100% sure they are not profitable.
Yeah, the big problem is that by definition most people live in the places where most people live. Urbanisation is over 80% in Europe and the US (and European countries hold a much looser definition of “urban” than the US).
To increase service to most people, you need to upgrade the entire world, which is expensive.
I’m not 100% sure they are not profitable.
I am. They’re reporting a profit right now because theyre calling the cost of new satellites as “investment” and not expenses. In a few years, when every satellite launched is a replacement, those “investments” become running costs, and there goes the profit.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, the satellites do “reasonably” boost themselves, they have propulsion on board.
After 5 years yes they trash them, but that nots not cost prohibitive for SpaceX. Starlink is brining in a significant amount of money, and it doesn’t cost SpaceX all that much to launch a new batch to replace the old. You all seem to forget they are the cheapest and most impressive launch company to date.
What you and nobody else seems to understand is that every year SpaceX is launching more and more rockets and they will only continue to increase their launch cadence. In the next one or two years, they will start using Starship for Starlink launches, and that will significantly increase the amount of bandwidth they can add to the network per lanch.
I’m sure I’ll get hate because I’m defending an elon company but everyone here is plain wrong and just making shit up.
The number of people willing to put up with the round trip latency to GEO is relatively small. They would only do it if there’s no other option. There aren’t enough customers to justify the kind of mass deployment Starlink needs to be profitable.
You can put lots of sats in a low orbit and get low latency, but then they either need to be replaced every few years (the kind of capital expenditure that companies are allergic to in the long run) or self-boosting (expensive, and still eventually need to be replaced). You can put them in a higher orbit, but latency goes up noticeably, you need even more sats for coverage, and it’s more expensive to put them there. You can put them in GEO and use fewer sats, but latency goes through the roof. These are the options orbital mechanics and current technology allows.
If we had a space elevator or similarly cheap way to access space, then it becomes more viable. Note that while Falcon 9 and Starship potentially make it viable to build one of the space megastructure ideas that have been floating around for decades, it would also crater SpaceX’s business model. Chemical rockets would build their own demise (at least for launching from Earth, and there are probably better technologies for scooting around the solar system once you’re up there). Musk likely knows that and would fight it.
Or you can build fiber to peoples homes and leave satellites for Antarctica or the Himalayas or such. That works, too.
Starlink was never a viable business prospect. It never will be. Anybody who signed up to Starlink was just waiting for this to happen without knowing it.
It is a viable business product, latest estimates are Starlink will bring in a revenue of 12 billion in 2025 with about 2 billion being profit. Of course it’s not a public company so we don’t get official numbers, but you’re flat out wrong.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/
When it’s all finished, and operating, that’s when the next Democratic government should take it from him. One person, especially one demonstrated to be mentally unstable, should not control the world’s Internet.
well it might’ve worked if he didn’t turn out to be a fascist… but since most people don’t want to support that, kinda fucks up the business model.
perpetually burning up satellites in the atmosphere is a pretty shitty business though.
I literally canceled because of his fucking nazi salute. Not giving that pos any money
Exactly. The business isn’t remotely sustainable. All that money being invested into new satellites will, by next year, need to be invested constantly to keep the network at the same size.
Starlink needs run as fast as it can, just to stay in the same place, and the investment money is finite when people see it’s not going to grow.
Can I get a TLDR for why they have to add new satellites every year? Are they in such low orbit that they need to be replaced often and why?
What was the life expectancy of each satellite? I think I read something like 5 to 7 years. If we were talking about dozens of satellites I would say no problem, but thousands?
On https://satellitemap.space/ you can see the numbers pretty accurately under “status over time”. The current launch cadence is steady since mid 2022, and the burn rate is climbing to match. It seems to have a 5 year delay, but it’s possible the new satellites will last a little longer.
Which means that by mid 2027 earliest and mid 2029, the current “investment” in “growth” will have become the regular maintenance spending. And up to that point, maintenance costs will continue to climb to consume the entire investment budget.
Starlink is already making more money than it costs to expand and operate, you are wrong. This is sustainable (financially) and counter to your beliefs over the next 10 years I’d wager the starlink network will balloon to many times its current size, 20,000 plus satellites in orbit.
SpaceX is the most successful company/entity in history that does space launch, it doesn’t cost them a whole lot of money to launch new batches of Satellites and that cost will continue to decrease as the Falcon 9 program continues to improve and as starship becomes operational over the next few years.
With how many government handouts though?
Honestly, there are no realistic, reliable figures either way. There are plenty of guesstimates, and they show a profit now, but that with a very significant investment in growth. And that investment comes in large part from external sources, which means that when the happy time ends and the satellites fail at the same rate as they’re currently launches, they need to either make WAY more money, or rely on external funding.
Definitely, they’re on track to stabilize at around 36.000 with the current launch cadence. That’s where every new satellite is a replacement. But that doesn’t count money, which is the problem, and will be more of a problem when expenses replace growth.
Eh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Falcon 9 costs haven’t gone down in years. Falcon Heavy is supposed to be cheaper per ton, yet somehow is almost never used for Starlink or anything else. Starship isn’t even projected to be cheaper than Falcon 9 (I except in what are basically ads).
I won’t debate more on the finances because, like you said, they’re a private company and we can’t know for sure. However, reliable public estimates show starlink is profitable already or will be very soon.
Starlink already about maxes out the fairing capacity of the Falcon Rockets, so allowing more weight doesn’t do much besides increase cost. Same with other companies buying launch services from SpaceX. Usually they don’t need the extra capacity or margins heavy offers, although I wish me got more launches, they are always a treat to watch.
Maybe not, but that wasn’t my main point. They are already spending money on Starship and that isn’t going to change. It’s just soon they will actually be able to use that money they’re spending to make more money by launching more starlinks. With the significantly larger payload capacity, they will also be able to launch way sats per launch and also more capable sats with higher bandwidth or more onboard propellants for a longer operational life
I expect Starship will be used to launch many batches of Starlink while the vehicle is still in testing and expected to fail on occasion, If you think about it in that capacity, the launches are free since they are already going to be doing test launches.
There’s a bunch of technology problems that make it undesirable, like the light and projectile pollution in leo
I mean, ultimately, that’s probably inevitable. We need to decide as a species whether we actually want to have a future in space in a big way. If you actually want to see a future where humanity spreads across the solar system, we’re going to need a vast infrastructure in orbit. That’s true no matter who is building that infrastructure. So…is it worth giving up that future just for the sake of ground-based astronomy? I would say no. Especially because the same technology and economies that lets you launch enough birds to ruin ground based astronomy also allows you to launch absurd numbers of space based astronomical telescopes.
That seems like a fair trade really. Again, this is just a limitation of the technology. Do you want to see a future where there actually are millions of human beings living and working off Earth? Then we’re going to have to give up ground based astronomy. Making low-visibility satellites can help a bit, but it’s a fundamentally intractable problem. And again, this is true regardless of who is building that big space infrastructure.
First, you don’t need tens of thousands of internet satellite in LEO to have an ambitious space program. The current mega-constellations are just a way for billionaires to build a new monopoly, and control internet access. It has nothing to do with getting humanity in the stars or whatever. Second, when are all these space telescopes coming? Launch cost is a very small fraction of building a space telescope because they are fragile, very large and complex pieces of equipment and getting them on a rocket is hard. Third, we will never see millions of human in outer space in our lifetimes. Earth is our only chance, at least for the overwhelming majority of us. So let’s protect it from sociopath billionaires.
I just generally doubt anything Musk does because of his track record. However, is there a particular reason why Starlink is inherently not viable? Could a competent person do it or it is fundamentally flawed? To put it another way is it cybertruck bad (yes people want electric cars but not a barely driveable dumpster held together with glue) or hyperloop bad (physics said no)?
The physics of it mean you basically have to be constantly launching new satellites to replace the 5 year old ones de orbiting. Further, it will also be disadvantaged to anything closer with ability to choose a cable medium. All this adds up to the most expensive infrastructure that exclusively targets very low population density areas and/or areas too poor to afford good Internet. The people that could afford to sustain this can afford to move somewhere with a bit more infrastructure or at least within reach of a terrestrial tower and have an even better result.
I mean…so what if the birds only last 5-7 years? My only real concern is that they’re not made with environmentally damaging materials. Let them fall over the South Pacific and be atomized on the way down. It really depends on how cheaply you can launch them. All infrastructure has a finite life span. 5-7 years is lower than most terrestrial infrastructure, but this is all a function of launch costs. If those can be made cheap enough, the concept is perfectly viable.
It is closer to a hyper loop system. For the internet to have low enough latency it has to be put in quite a low earth orbit. That means we need more satlights to make coverage, ballooning costs. However that is not the part that kills it, it is that it is in such low orbit we can expect air resistance to significantly degrade orbits. There are too many satilights to reasonably boost them all, and when they start to degrade it will be too fast to reasonably replace them all.
That, and as they burn up upon re-entry, they’re fucking up the environment:
https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-reentry-pollution-damage-earth-atmosphere
And they first batches of the current network are at their end of life. That means that with the same level of investment, growth will slow down, which is terrible for venture capital.
And orbital mechanics is a bitch. You can’t add more speed to a certain area (like a city with a lot of people) and less to the empty ocean. So there’s a harsh density limit to your subscribes.
I mean, the need for internet satellite is mostly in low density areas. In big cities fiber will always be cheaper and more reliable (except maybe in the US where operators are allowed to fuck you). I hate Musk and I guess Starlink is squeezing their monopoly position right now, but I’m not 100% sure they are not profitable.
Maybe a better answer is WiMax.
Yeah, the big problem is that by definition most people live in the places where most people live. Urbanisation is over 80% in Europe and the US (and European countries hold a much looser definition of “urban” than the US).
To increase service to most people, you need to upgrade the entire world, which is expensive.
I am. They’re reporting a profit right now because theyre calling the cost of new satellites as “investment” and not expenses. In a few years, when every satellite launched is a replacement, those “investments” become running costs, and there goes the profit.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, the satellites do “reasonably” boost themselves, they have propulsion on board.
After 5 years yes they trash them, but that nots not cost prohibitive for SpaceX. Starlink is brining in a significant amount of money, and it doesn’t cost SpaceX all that much to launch a new batch to replace the old. You all seem to forget they are the cheapest and most impressive launch company to date.
What you and nobody else seems to understand is that every year SpaceX is launching more and more rockets and they will only continue to increase their launch cadence. In the next one or two years, they will start using Starship for Starlink launches, and that will significantly increase the amount of bandwidth they can add to the network per lanch.
I’m sure I’ll get hate because I’m defending an elon company but everyone here is plain wrong and just making shit up.
☝️ spitting facts. people love to hate, and complain about the “other side” being delusional. turns out, we ALL can be a little delusional.
Not everyone needs super low latency. Satellite phones exist for a reason.
The number of people willing to put up with the round trip latency to GEO is relatively small. They would only do it if there’s no other option. There aren’t enough customers to justify the kind of mass deployment Starlink needs to be profitable.
You can put lots of sats in a low orbit and get low latency, but then they either need to be replaced every few years (the kind of capital expenditure that companies are allergic to in the long run) or self-boosting (expensive, and still eventually need to be replaced). You can put them in a higher orbit, but latency goes up noticeably, you need even more sats for coverage, and it’s more expensive to put them there. You can put them in GEO and use fewer sats, but latency goes through the roof. These are the options orbital mechanics and current technology allows.
If we had a space elevator or similarly cheap way to access space, then it becomes more viable. Note that while Falcon 9 and Starship potentially make it viable to build one of the space megastructure ideas that have been floating around for decades, it would also crater SpaceX’s business model. Chemical rockets would build their own demise (at least for launching from Earth, and there are probably better technologies for scooting around the solar system once you’re up there). Musk likely knows that and would fight it.
Or you can build fiber to peoples homes and leave satellites for Antarctica or the Himalayas or such. That works, too.
Too many words. What did you want to say exactly?
Wonderful. They can just talk to their server on the phone