Quote from: thespacecow on 12/14/2025 03:07 amTheir subsystem business is mainly geared towards old space, e.g. SolAero's main customer is government programs like Gateway, JWST. Their total cells manufactured to date is 4MW, that's just about 2 weeks worth of Starlink launches. The scale and cost is not even relevant to large constellations like Kuiper (which doesn't use space grade cells), let alone orbital data centers.And why would orbital data center companies out source satellite bus to RL instead of building it themselves, when RL has no experience building large number of satellites or building multi-ton satellites? Even Kuiper doesn't outsource its bus production.Google even outsource to PlanetLab. RL surely has more experience and competence than PL in this domain.https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalable-ai-infrastructure-system-design/QuoteTo begin addressing these challenges, our next milestone is a learning mission in partnership with Planet, slated to launch two prototype satellites by early 2027. This experiment will test how our models and TPU hardware operate in space and validate the use of optical inter-satellite links for distributed ML tasks.https://www.planet.com/pulse/planet-to-build-and-operate-advanced-space-platform-for-project-suncatcher-moonshot/
Their subsystem business is mainly geared towards old space, e.g. SolAero's main customer is government programs like Gateway, JWST. Their total cells manufactured to date is 4MW, that's just about 2 weeks worth of Starlink launches. The scale and cost is not even relevant to large constellations like Kuiper (which doesn't use space grade cells), let alone orbital data centers.And why would orbital data center companies out source satellite bus to RL instead of building it themselves, when RL has no experience building large number of satellites or building multi-ton satellites? Even Kuiper doesn't outsource its bus production.
To begin addressing these challenges, our next milestone is a learning mission in partnership with Planet, slated to launch two prototype satellites by early 2027. This experiment will test how our models and TPU hardware operate in space and validate the use of optical inter-satellite links for distributed ML tasks.
Neutron needs a purpose to survive, it needs a satellite constellation.
RocketLab has been awarded a contract of potential value up to $805M for 18 Satellites to form the Tranche 3 tracking layer!https://www.sda.mil/space-development-agency-makes-awards-to-build-72-tracking-layer-satellites-for-tranche-3/Very good news! This will be their biggest contract yet if they get the full award.
Great Xmas present for us investors, share price $70 at closing, expecting it to climb bit more next week. $100 maybe bit optimistic.This contract almost doubles their backlog from about $1050M to about $2000M. Besides $816M for SDA contract also +$100M in components to the other winners with Geosat Starlite being one these. This is where having all these components inhouse pays off. This award secures RL cashflow for next few years. By time current contract SDA finishes shipping revenue from new contract will be ramping up. Along Neutron launches hopefully. Neutron will also be online by time these 72 satellites need launch so chance to make bit more $$ on these awards.Now playing with big boys ie LM, Northorp, Harris but unlike them have lot more of components inhouse.
Note their biggest source of potential future revenue, MSR, just got killed by Congress. It seems that retail investors haven't even realized this yet.
With Blue Terawave more competence for the future constelation of RL...
Quote from: Tywin on 01/21/2026 09:18 pmWith Blue Terawave more competence for the future constelation of RL...I mean, I wouldn't exactly expect Blue Origin to pay other launch companies to carry their own satellites into orbit. It was one thing with Amazon and Blue Origin, there's a valid argument that "they're both owned by Jeff Bezos but strictly speaking they're different companies, and so Amazon cannot unreasonably favor Blue Origin without pissing off its shareholders," but a private company like Blue Origin can certain eschew bidding out launches of their own hardware if they want to keep everything in-house.
