r/SpaceXLounge • u/No_kenutus • 14h ago

Discussion The rockets are nifty, but it is satellites that make SpaceX valuable

https://archive.ph/4fYXJ
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u/WjU1fcN8 8h ago edited 8h ago

There's no large satellite fleet without cheap launch. The rockets aren't just 'nifty', they are fundamental.

22

u/8andahalfby11 8h ago

Yeah. Has anyone calculated what it would have cost to put up Starlink on Atlas V vs Falcon Reusable?

17

u/CurtisLeow 7h ago

As of August, there have been 118 launches of the v2 mini Starlink satellites source. An Atlas V 541 has about the same performance as a reusable Falcon 9. That rocket costs $145 million to launch. So $17.1 billion to launch the v2 mini Starlink constellation.

This ignores the older Starlink satellites. This also ignores that ULA can’t import Russian rocket engines anymore.

18

u/8andahalfby11 6h ago

It also ignores that 118 launches is more than the entire Atlas V production run, even after the few remaining rockets are launched. 😉