SpaceX SmallSat Rideshare Program

[TrevorMonty]

We've already speculated that SpaceX rideshares could strangle the smallsat launcher market, and here they are claiming Bandwagon has effectively done so. Note that kneecapping competitors is a valid business reason for the pricing though, especially if that pricing is still above their internal costs. Going so far as taking a loss to undercut competitors might stray into effectively monopolistic behavior however but note the anonymous source does not accuse SpaceX of that, yet, if only because SpaceX has such a fantastically low internal cost.

Smells like sour grapes for the latecomers though.

Until there is no competition then SpaceX can put their prices back up and drop rideshare missions.

F9 list price as ELV was originally $50M then creeped up to $67M along with better performance. By rights as successful RLV should be lot cheaper than $67M.

[DanClemmensen]

Until there is no competition then SpaceX can put their prices back up and drop rideshare missions.

F9 list price as ELV was originally $50M then creeped up to $67M along with better performance. By rights as successful RLV should be lot cheaper than $67M.

There is no evidence that SpaceX is deliberately trying to kill the competition. It is just as likely to be a side effect of pricing set to maximize absolute profit. If they are actually making a profit on rideshare, Why would they drop it?

Price creep from $50M to $67M (a 37% increase) is less than the inflation rate.

By what "rights" would a successful RLV have a launch price less than $67M? Feel free to provide this service if you can. As you know, Crazy Elon is aiming for a launch cost of less than $10M for Starship, so he probably agrees with you. Is this what you are referring to?

The administration is currently considering adding launch fees or other taxed on launches to pay for range operations. It will be interesting to see what the fee structure will look like.

[GreenShrike]

Until there is no competition then SpaceX can put their prices back up and drop rideshare missions.

This would be a an ideal situation for the upcoming reusable rockets like New Glenn, Neutron, Terran-R and Stoke's Nova -- an established market for services where the primary service provider is dropping its offering. Of course, there's no reason for SpaceX to do that, so New Glenn et al will have to contend with SpaceX as well as each other.

It's going to take a reusable rocket to actually compete with SpaceX in the rideshare market; if a current offering can't compete with Transporter and Bandwagon, then they haven't a hope when SpaceX gets real competition.


Besides, worrying about transport services is looking in the wrong end of the telescope -- what's important is the economic activity done in the workplace, not the bus or taxi used for the commute. After all, the space launch market is dwarfed by the space services sector so a lower barrier to entry in the space domain is all to the good, as a lot more business cases close with a $1M ticket to ride, than a $6M dollar one.

To borrow AmigaClone's analogy, Electron and other small expendable launchers may be darn fine stagecoachs, but there's zero sense in holding up the era of the train just to keep them competitive. And to thence mix metaphors, I would hope stagecoach providers are spending their efforts to build their own trains, and not wasting time carving sabots to try tossing into SpaceX's powered looms.

[mlindner]

Has anyone been keeping track of the https://rideshare.spacex.com/ page, ideally via regular screenshots of it? I've noticed that the internet archive doesn't backup the site correctly.

The 5 next missions are all blacked out now and I'm trying to figure out when that happened.

[Yiosie]

Has anyone been keeping track of the https://rideshare.spacex.com/ page, ideally via regular screenshots of it? I've noticed that the internet archive doesn't backup the site correctly.

The 5 next missions are all blacked out now and I'm trying to figure out when that happened.

I've taken occasional screenshots of the SpaceX Rideshare Program page for that very reason!

Imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/spacex-rideshare-program-flight-list-vnDYEfd

[mlindner]

Has anyone been keeping track of the https://rideshare.spacex.com/ page, ideally via regular screenshots of it? I've noticed that the internet archive doesn't backup the site correctly.

The 5 next missions are all blacked out now and I'm trying to figure out when that happened.

I've taken occasional screenshots of the SpaceX Rideshare Program page for that very reason!

Imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/spacex-rideshare-program-flight-list-vnDYEfd

Thank you very much for doing this. I hope you are also keeping local backups as imgur will occasionally and randomly purge people's images for unexplained reasons. It's unusual, but have heard of people losing huge amounts of images with no explanation.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/_rykllan/status/1826193469590655332

#SpaceX's Smallsat Rideshare Program statistics as of Aug 20, 2024

[meekGee]

#SpaceX's Smallsat Rideshare Program statistics as of Aug 20, 2024

Heh.  A Vatican sat indeed.
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/info/2023/06/13/230613a.html

Funny people.

Also, Ilirida.  Not a combination of Illinois amd Florida.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Crosspost:

From a SpaceXer:

https://twitter.com/esuse09/status/1828826956961595726

To be clear, we also deliver extremely high accuracy orbital elements within minutes of spacecraft separation (pending telemetry coverage). The expedience of delivery of orbital data is not an Electron differentiator.

Which was in response to:

https://x.com/peter_j_beck/status/1828632379801682130

This is why our customers fly on Electron, orbital elements are provided immediately after separation with extremely high accuracy. Nobody should ever have to go looking for their spacecraft.

[gongora]

SAT-LOA-20250701-00129

[AndrewM]

Remaining availability for Transporters 17 through 21 as of early October 2025.