Quote from: alanr74 on 03/02/2022 05:49 pmThe bigger issue is the complete collapse of OneWeb which is a devastating blow to the UK's and Europe's hope for a non US system.Complete collapse of OneWeb? That's hyperbole. Yes, they'll probably end up losing some fraction of the ~$350M for these launches (the fraction that went to Roscosmos), and yes this will delay them being able to launch their remaining ~200 satellites. But they already have over 2/3 of their constellation launched. As of some point last year (I think August or September), they hit the point where once their satellites were done with orbit raising, that they could begin offering commercial services above/below 50N and 50S. With the number of launches they've done since then, I wouldn't be surprised if they could extend that to 40N/S or maybe even 30N/S with some cleverness. Is that the whole world? No. But depending on the minimum latitude they can serve, that could still be most or all of Europe, Canada, the US, Japan/SK, parts of China, possibly northern parts of India, parts of Australia, NZ, large parts of South Africa and South America.I guess I'm just saying that I wouldn't count them out yet. ~Jon
The bigger issue is the complete collapse of OneWeb which is a devastating blow to the UK's and Europe's hope for a non US system.
Must admit, the contrast in the capability and prospects of the “two leading megaconstellation operators” could not be more starkly apparent after recent events.SpaceX loses almost an entire Starlink launch batch in a solar storm. Impact - they just launch another batch a few days later, hardly breaking stride as they continue to accelerate.Oneweb’s next launch gets frozen due to geopolitical tensions, and suddenly their entire business case is in jeopardy.
Ouch. That hurts. It seems it's ion trusters. Something like https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPT-100
Todays news Oneweb sats. and russian demand for no military use by Great Britian !!Satellites are stuck in russia .. Doesn't look like russia will return them ..If oneweb can build new replacements can Falcon 9Launch them ?? Ariane Space doesn't seem to have slots the russians won't beselling them any launchers !!I wonder if Oneweb wishes they would have tried to arrange a Falcon 9ride in the first place !! I know they would be paying the competition .. But hind sight being20/20 it would have been Less Expense and Less Misery in the long run !!
Maybe belaboring the obvious, but Roscosmos is taking on a sovereign power, the UK, presumably at Putin's demand. Being as Roscosmos is a thinly disguised arm of Russia, there's a lot of ways the monetary damages could be recouped from Russia's assets.The technical issues maybe not so easy. Hopefully there will be some closing of ranks to help OneWeb patch up a new plan.
Quote from: M.E.T. on 03/03/2022 12:43 amMust admit, the contrast in the capability and prospects of the “two leading megaconstellation operators” could not be more starkly apparent after recent events.SpaceX loses almost an entire Starlink launch batch in a solar storm. Impact - they just launch another batch a few days later, hardly breaking stride as they continue to accelerate.Oneweb’s next launch gets frozen due to geopolitical tensions, and suddenly their entire business case is in jeopardy.Let’s not forget to add they’ve already gone bankrupt once
Let’s not forget to add they’ve already gone bankrupt once
Quote from: toren on 03/03/2022 01:36 amMaybe belaboring the obvious, but Roscosmos is taking on a sovereign power, the UK, presumably at Putin's demand. Being as Roscosmos is a thinly disguised arm of Russia, there's a lot of ways the monetary damages could be recouped from Russia's assets.The technical issues maybe not so easy. Hopefully there will be some closing of ranks to help OneWeb patch up a new plan.I would say OneWeb has been helped quite a lot already - not least with UK taxpayer money to rescue them from bankruptcy. And preferential permitting treatment by the Indian authorities.Maybe it’s time to accept their business model is cumbersome, flawed and ultimately not competitive with that of the industry leader.
Quote from: ZachF on 03/03/2022 12:53 amLet’s not forget to add they’ve already gone bankrupt once Which, in spite of what most SpaceX amazing peoples seem to think, was probably mostly due to bad timing. Most startups (including SpaceX for Starlink) raise the money for big projects like this in an incremental series of raises. You usually have a certain amount of "runway" (time before you run out of money), and you try to raise the next round before you get too close to the end of the runway, but typically not too soon after your previous raise, in the hopes of retiring some risk so you can raise the new money at a higher valuation. OneWeb was in the process of closing a funding round right as the world ground to a halt in early 2020. There was about a 2mo period there where a lot of people in the finance world thought we were going to crash into depression and all the space investment money was going to dry up. In hindsight, they were completely wrong--2020 actually ended up being a record year for space investment. But between February and early April 2020, a lot of people thought the bottom was going to drop out on the space finance market and we were going to see dozens of high profile bankruptcies. If the timing of when OneWeb had needed to raise their round shifted about 30 days in either direction, they likely would've closed it just fine (either before the pandemic lockdowns hit, or long enough afterward that it became obvious that financial markets weren't locking up). And without that hiccup, they'd be quite a bit ahead of SpaceX. They would've already had service going above 50 degrees before SpaceX could offer anything, and they'd likely be done with their entire first generation constellation by today.Did the bankruptcy help their second owners? Sure! But it almost certainly wasn't driven by any doubts about their feasibility or business model or anything else. If SpaceX's fundraising timing had been similarly pessimal, there's a non-zero chance they would've had to have done some serious layoffs, and/or slow-rolled one of their projects too. Sometimes bankruptcies are driven by bad business models, but most people I've spoken with about this agree this was more driven by unlucky timing than relative market viability.~Jon
Quote from: jongoff on 03/03/2022 02:10 amQuote from: ZachF on 03/03/2022 12:53 amLet’s not forget to add they’ve already gone bankrupt once Which, in spite of what most SpaceX amazing peoples seem to think, was probably mostly due to bad timing. Most startups (including SpaceX for Starlink) raise the money for big projects like this in an incremental series of raises. You usually have a certain amount of "runway" (time before you run out of money), and you try to raise the next round before you get too close to the end of the runway, but typically not too soon after your previous raise, in the hopes of retiring some risk so you can raise the new money at a higher valuation. OneWeb was in the process of closing a funding round right as the world ground to a halt in early 2020. There was about a 2mo period there where a lot of people in the finance world thought we were going to crash into depression and all the space investment money was going to dry up. In hindsight, they were completely wrong--2020 actually ended up being a record year for space investment. But between February and early April 2020, a lot of people thought the bottom was going to drop out on the space finance market and we were going to see dozens of high profile bankruptcies. If the timing of when OneWeb had needed to raise their round shifted about 30 days in either direction, they likely would've closed it just fine (either before the pandemic lockdowns hit, or long enough afterward that it became obvious that financial markets weren't locking up). And without that hiccup, they'd be quite a bit ahead of SpaceX. They would've already had service going above 50 degrees before SpaceX could offer anything, and they'd likely be done with their entire first generation constellation by today.Did the bankruptcy help their second owners? Sure! But it almost certainly wasn't driven by any doubts about their feasibility or business model or anything else. If SpaceX's fundraising timing had been similarly pessimal, there's a non-zero chance they would've had to have done some serious layoffs, and/or slow-rolled one of their projects too. Sometimes bankruptcies are driven by bad business models, but most people I've spoken with about this agree this was more driven by unlucky timing than relative market viability.~JonI don’t think the business case maths out at all with these giant constellations without at least a semi-reusable launch vehicle.One Web is paying ~$50m to launch ~250gbps of constellation capacity, SX is paying ~$25m to launch >1,000Gbps.
I'm not sure that this is much of a defense given that OneWeb and Starlink exist in the same world and that SpaceX did NOT go bankrupt while under the exact same global stresses and while simultaneously ramping up Starlink AND Starship... If it were some universal challenge, rather than incompetence within one organization, one would imagine that SpaceX's nonessential programs would have visibly struggled or faltered, too. What the events definitely DONT imply is that it could never happen again or that it was entirely outside of OneWeb's control. There are plenty of reasons to still be concerned and skeptical.
