Author Topic: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds  (Read 205355 times)

Online Coastal Ron

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SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« on: 10/26/2018 12:40 am »
I started this thread to talk about SpaceX company news.

In the news today SpaceX is seeking to take out a $500M loan:

SpaceX Seeks $500 Million Loan Via Goldman Sachs - Bloomberg

Apparently it's a smart financial move - from the article:

Quote
SpaceX’s timing lets it take advantage of a borrower’s market in leveraged finance...

I know that profitable companies take out loans for many good reasons, so this is not unusual. In fact it's probably much better than giving up equity for the same amount.

Thoughts?
« Last Edit: 10/30/2018 12:20 pm by Chris Bergin »
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #1 on: 10/26/2018 12:52 am »
I started this thread to talk about SpaceX company news.

In the news today SpaceX is seeking to take out a $500M loan:

SpaceX Seeks $500 Million Loan Via Goldman Sachs - Bloomberg

Apparently it's a smart financial move - from the article:

Quote
SpaceX’s timing lets it take advantage of a borrower’s market in leveraged finance...

I know that profitable companies take out loans for many good reasons, so this is not unusual. In fact it's probably much better than giving up equity for the same amount.

Thoughts?
Starlink and BFR.
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Online wannamoonbase

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #2 on: 10/26/2018 01:14 am »
Starlink and BFR.

Agreed, Leaning more to Starlink.  That needs to be a higher priority than BFR, since it is suppose to generate the revenue for BFR.
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #3 on: 10/26/2018 01:18 am »
Starlink and BFR.

Agreed, Leaning more to Starlink.  That needs to be a higher priority than BFR, since it is suppose to generate the revenue for BFR.
...part of the way it's going to "generate revenue(sic) for BFR" is because a huge portion of the cost of Starlink's deployment is launch, and BFR can launch Starlink more affordably. It's amazing how many times this needs to be repeated before people will attempt to understand it.

They'll be funded as one chunk.
« Last Edit: 10/26/2018 01:19 am by Robotbeat »
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline IntoTheVoid

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #4 on: 10/26/2018 02:43 pm »
Starlink and BFR.

Agreed, Leaning more to Starlink.  That needs to be a higher priority than BFR, since it is suppose to generate the revenue for BFR.
...part of the way it's going to "generate revenue(sic) for BFR" is because a huge portion of the cost of Starlink's deployment is launch, and BFR can launch Starlink more affordably. It's amazing how many times this needs to be repeated before people will attempt to understand it.

They'll be funded as one chunk.
Right. Think of BFR/S as a capital equipment expense for Starlink, like the Tesla Gigafactory for Tesla cars. BFR/S increases global launch capacity in a manner similar to Gigafactory increasing global battery capacity (even if more extreme). SpaceX can launch (some) Starlink without BFR/S. just as Tesla could build (some) cars without the Gigafactory, but to get the capacity they really need, they need to invest the capital for BFR/Gigafactory. And sure BFR/S will launch other things, but that's still as similar as Gigafactory supplies batteries for other things, like Powerwall. SpaceX's loftier aspirations for BFR/S don't invalidate how they choose to fund/develop/acquire it.

Offline speedevil

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #5 on: 10/26/2018 11:41 pm »
. SpaceX can launch (some) Starlink without BFR/S. just as Tesla could build (some) cars without the Gigafactory, but to get the capacity they really need, they need to invest the capital for BFR/Gigafactory.
This is unclear.
It would be very nice for them to have BFS to launch it, but a wholly reusable F9 would also enable this.
Fourteen score and seven days ago, Elon said
Quote
... get down to a marginal cost for a Falcon 9 launch down, fully considered, down under $5 or $6M
Later he gave a 2-3 year timescale on this.

At least initially, and perhaps up until operation with a thousand or two, a reusable F9 would be quite adequate, and probably not meaningfully more expensive than BFR, given that the cost per satellite launch would be $150K, and presumably they'd still cost a fair bit more than that, even with aggressive cost reduction, never mind total system cost including user terminals.

Offline IntoTheVoid

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #6 on: 10/27/2018 12:28 am »
. SpaceX can launch (some) Starlink without BFR/S. just as Tesla could build (some) cars without the Gigafactory, but to get the capacity they really need, they need to invest the capital for BFR/Gigafactory.
This is unclear.
It would be very nice for them to have BFS to launch it, but a wholly reusable F9 would also enable this.
Fourteen score and seven days ago, Elon said
Quote
... get down to a marginal cost for a Falcon 9 launch down, fully considered, down under $5 or $6M
Later he gave a 2-3 year timescale on this.

At least initially, and perhaps up until operation with a thousand or two, a reusable F9 would be quite adequate, and probably not meaningfully more expensive than BFR, given that the cost per satellite launch would be $150K, and presumably they'd still cost a fair bit more than that, even with aggressive cost reduction, never mind total system cost including user terminals.
Actually, it's not unclear. They need the launch capacity. Whether or not that needed capacity could alternately be met by a fully resuable F9 is irrelevant (and unclear). The needed capacity is sufficient justification to treat the BFR/S as a capital expense for Starlink.

What's actually unclear is a reusable upper stage for F9, which you seem quite ready to presume into existence without regard for the engineering which has not yet been done and may not ever get done.

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #7 on: 10/27/2018 08:04 am »
I too think the money is for Starlink & BFR. The FCC approval for Starlink didn’t relax the deadline to get the constellation operational. So as things stand SpaceX has until March 2024 to get a huge number of satellites into orbit. I doubt F9 & FH would be sufficient, particularly if there are delays in satellite production.

Online oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #8 on: 10/28/2018 05:40 am »
There are more short term costs that this money would be used for. But they are also Starlink and BFR related. Most of these are factories/buildings, pad infrastructure(Boca Chica) tooling. This is needed quickly to get the actual building of flight hardware for both.

Offline cro-magnon gramps

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #9 on: 10/29/2018 11:59 am »
Sorry I don't have a link to cite this, but in one of Elon's many comments on Starlink
it was said that the initial deployment would be 800 satellites over the USA (and "possibly"
Europe,) to capture the high value market, to help fund the rest (he didn't remark on
funding BFR/BFS). That deployment would / could be done by F9 / FH before retirement.

As an aside, it would satisfy the FCC requirement to give access to remote regions of the
USA that at present don't have cheap (affordable) access to the internet.

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Online John-H

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #10 on: 10/29/2018 06:27 pm »
Sorry I don't have a link to cite this, but in one of Elon's many comments on Starlink
it was said that the initial deployment would be 800 satellites over the USA (and "possibly"
Europe,) to capture the high value market, to help fund the rest (he didn't remark on
funding BFR/BFS). That deployment would / could be done by F9 / FH before retirement.

As an aside, it would satisfy the FCC requirement to give access to remote regions of the
USA that at present don't have cheap (affordable) access to the internet.

How will he launch only the low orbit satellites that are over the US? 

John

Offline starsilk

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #11 on: 10/29/2018 06:47 pm »
Sorry I don't have a link to cite this, but in one of Elon's many comments on Starlink
it was said that the initial deployment would be 800 satellites over the USA (and "possibly"
Europe,) to capture the high value market, to help fund the rest (he didn't remark on
funding BFR/BFS). That deployment would / could be done by F9 / FH before retirement.

As an aside, it would satisfy the FCC requirement to give access to remote regions of the
USA that at present don't have cheap (affordable) access to the internet.

How will he launch only the low orbit satellites that are over the US? 

they won't. they'll launch satellites into orbital planes that spend a lot of time over the continental US first; they'll be all over the world, but in sporadic groups, but provide complete coverage (24x7 at high enough satellite density) over the US.

later they'll backfill other planes that provide eg higher or lower latitude coverage.

Offline Lars-J

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #12 on: 10/29/2018 11:54 pm »
Sorry I don't have a link to cite this, but in one of Elon's many comments on Starlink
it was said that the initial deployment would be 800 satellites over the USA (and "possibly"
Europe,) to capture the high value market, to help fund the rest (he didn't remark on
funding BFR/BFS). That deployment would / could be done by F9 / FH before retirement.

As an aside, it would satisfy the FCC requirement to give access to remote regions of the
USA that at present don't have cheap (affordable) access to the internet.

How will he launch only the low orbit satellites that are over the US? 

they won't. they'll launch satellites into orbital planes that spend a lot of time over the continental US first; they'll be all over the world, but in sporadic groups, but provide complete coverage (24x7 at high enough satellite density) over the US.

later they'll backfill other planes that provide eg higher or lower latitude coverage.

There will be equally good coverage not only over the continental US - but anywhere in the world that is at the same latitude (north or south) or closer to the equator than the continetal US.

You can't just target the continental US, that's not how orbital mechanics works. Once the continental US has good coverage, so will south america, Africa, Australia, and most of Asia.

Bandwidth limits might be more of a limiter (selectively only enabling it over certain areas), but coverage through orbital planes will basically cover everything in the world other than Alaska, Canada, Russia, and Northern Europe.

EDIT: This image shows how much of the world a LEO constellation needs to cover to provide continental US coverage. From +50 latitude to -50 latitude. The vast majority. :)
« Last Edit: 10/30/2018 12:12 am by Lars-J »

Offline speedevil

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #13 on: 10/30/2018 10:12 am »
In this thread, I worked out the minimal constellation to get some form of service, and got something like 320, for coverage between -54 and 54N.

Spaced at three satellites per 110 degree beamwidth of the satellites as shown in the SpaceX documents for the constellation. (down to 35 degrees above the horizon).

This is enough for a single satellite failure to cause 2-3 minute outages until one of the spares is moved over.
It would only provide continuous service to places with a clear view down to 35 degrees above the horizon, so may be less useful in dense urban areas with lots of skyscrapers.

This was assuming the nominal orbital altitude and inclination of 53 degrees.
This can only cope with something like a sixth of the user density of the final system.
800 is enough for a very much more nominal system, with more dense coverage between +-54 degrees and perhaps some service outside this area.

At this configuration (320) it has considerably more capacity than oneweb.

500 million dollars would in principle be in the range of being able to comfortably launch this number on partially reused F9s, along with a little left over for the satellites.
« Last Edit: 10/30/2018 12:55 pm by speedevil »

Offline envy887

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #14 on: 10/30/2018 10:55 am »
Sorry I don't have a link to cite this, but in one of Elon's many comments on Starlink
it was said that the initial deployment would be 800 satellites over the USA (and "possibly"
Europe,) to capture the high value market, to help fund the rest (he didn't remark on
funding BFR/BFS). That deployment would / could be done by F9 / FH before retirement.

As an aside, it would satisfy the FCC requirement to give access to remote regions of the
USA that at present don't have cheap (affordable) access to the internet.

How will he launch only the low orbit satellites that are over the US? 

they won't. they'll launch satellites into orbital planes that spend a lot of time over the continental US first; they'll be all over the world, but in sporadic groups, but provide complete coverage (24x7 at high enough satellite density) over the US.

later they'll backfill other planes that provide eg higher or lower latitude coverage.

There will be equally good coverage not only over the continental US - but anywhere in the world that is at the same latitude (north or south) or closer to the equator than the continetal US.

You can't just target the continental US, that's not how orbital mechanics works. Once the continental US has good coverage, so will south america, Africa, Australia, and most of Asia.

Bandwidth limits might be more of a limiter (selectively only enabling it over certain areas), but coverage through orbital planes will basically cover everything in the world other than Alaska, Canada, Russia, and Northern Europe.

EDIT: This image shows how much of the world a LEO constellation needs to cover to provide continental US coverage. From +50 latitude to -50 latitude. The vast majority. :)

That's also not how orbital mechanics works. Because the relative velocity between satellites near their maximum and minimum latitudes is lower, they are denser there, and thus provide better coverage at high and low latitudes than at the equator.

So they CAN launch a smaller constellation that is targeted at the US and Europe, and doesn't service equatorial or polar latitudes nearly as well (in the case of polar latitudes, doesn't service those at all).

It would also happen to provide good coverage in New Zealand, southern Australia and southern Argentina, if you live there. But just highlighting all the area between latitudes is not accurate.
« Last Edit: 10/30/2018 10:55 am by envy887 »

Online Chris Bergin

Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #15 on: 10/30/2018 12:16 pm »
Just a reminder, this thread soon turned into a "pipe and slippers" conversation about orbital mechanics. I get why, but people have threads on notification. The above posts set off "new post on the SpaceX Company News" thread.

At least one member hopped and skipped on to the site thinking "Great! New post. Let's see what wonderous news that post has gathered". Sees "Well, Orbital Mechanics is". That member then throws his laptop out of the window in disappointment, gets on his phone, reports the post to moderator saying "Is this really SpaceX company news?" - which arrives in the form of an e-mail to all the mods on the forum when really that facility is more to alert us to spammers or breach of rules posts.

Not going to trim anything, but this is one of 100s of examples of why we keep saying "STAY ON TOPIC!" ;D After all, all you have to do is think "Hmm, that's not right, but this thread is not the place for it. QUOTE the post. Past into a relevant thread, or start a new thread, and then add your response so the conversation is specific and doesn't detract on the host thread.

Phew! ;D

To be fair, this is a redundant thread with such a title. It's basically just a "Bloomberg" article and nothing since. Let's change the title to what it actually is.
« Last Edit: 10/30/2018 12:22 pm by Chris Bergin »
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Online Coastal Ron

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #16 on: 10/30/2018 01:11 pm »
Not going to trim anything, but this is one of 100s of examples of why we keep saying "STAY ON TOPIC!" ;D

After starting the thread I had planned to be checking in on it to see if I needed to keep it on topic, but alas I lagged.

Quote
To be fair, this is a redundant thread with such a title. It's basically just a "Bloomberg" article and nothing since. Let's change the title to what it actually is.

I actually searched back a year to see if we had a general news thread for SpaceX, and I didn't see one. My hope was that this would be a catchall thread for non-hardware and non-mission related news, like the funding story.

Any chance of changing back the title? Hopefully your gentle reminder would stop the wandering...  :)
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Offline IRobot

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #17 on: 10/30/2018 01:19 pm »
Can't find the article, but when I read this news a few days ago, there was a comment that SpaceX would have to disclose its finantial position to Goldman Sachs, which is something they always try to keep privy.

Offline Rocket Science

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #18 on: 10/30/2018 03:56 pm »
Service needs to be approved for use, for example in Canada through the CRTC...
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Offline docmordrid

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Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds
« Reply #19 on: 11/05/2018 11:59 pm »
Bloomberg..

Quote
SpaceX Seeks $750 Million Loan Via New Arranger BofA

Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX is planning to launch a $750 million leveraged loan this week, which will now be led by Bank of America Corp. instead of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Bank of America has scheduled a Nov. 7 presentation for potential investors, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the transaction is private.
>
« Last Edit: 11/06/2018 12:01 am by docmordrid »
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