Eutelsat OneWeb: Constellation - General Thread

[TrevorMonty]

Unlike Iriduim which was in orbit and operational, majority of Oneweb has yet be built let alone launched. I don't think anybody will pick it up.

Starlink is still an unknown finacially, could be making or breaking of SpaceX.

Amazon can afford to take their time and build constellation they want. Of all the players they have money and internal market to make it work. They may put their constellation on back burner till this recession runs its course. The web store will take large hit but income from AWS and Prime plus $100B cash reserves should see them through the recession.

[gongora]

Please put posts for a particular mission in the appropriate mission thread.

[dglow]

The company that builds the satellites is a joint venture between OneWeb and Airbus.  The satellites and constellation are owned by OneWeb.

Thanks, Gongora.  I've updated my post.

My question remains. 

With the emergence of new LEO satcomm services from US and Canadian players, and the strong European connection with OneWeb (both the manufacturing JV with Airbus Defence and Space and with the strong Arianespace interest in the multi-year endeavor),
what sort of likelihood might exist for the European space industrial interests to make a bid for the assets as the OneWeb company goes under?

A lot less likelihood than there would be if we weren't in the middle of a global health and economic catastrophe.

Very true.

OneWeb's troubles will be exacerbated by CV-19, but I suspect they originated from another catastrophe: the real estate virus known as WeWork. That disaster bled SoftBank and initiated their pullback. Without Masayoshi Son's piggybank Wyler and OneWeb are screwed.   

[Llian Rhydderch]

The company that builds the satellites is a joint venture between OneWeb and Airbus.  The satellites and constellation are owned by OneWeb.

Thanks, Gongora.  I've updated my post.

My question remains. 

With the emergence of new LEO satcomm services from US and Canadian players, and the strong European connection with OneWeb (both the manufacturing JV with Airbus Defence and Space and with the strong Arianespace interest in the multi-year endeavor),
what sort of likelihood might exist for the European space industrial interests to make a bid for the assets as the OneWeb company goes under?

A lot less likelihood than there would be if we weren't in the middle of a global health and economic catastrophe.

Very true.

OneWeb's troubles will exacerbated by CV-19, but I suspect they originated from another catastrophe: the real estate virus known as WeWork. That disaster bled SoftBank and initiated their pullback. Without Masayoshi Son's piggybank Wyler and OneWeb are screwed.   

It's not just SoftBank's woes, and SoftBank's inability to fund now.

Satellite internet communication systems have potential tens of billions of revenue ahead of them.  Other's could come in and invest, if the return were perceived to be there.

But competitive pressures from other suppliers of this service, with a lower cost structure, will mitigate against OneWeb's long-term success given the high cost structure they baked in by their strategic decisions and choice of partners.

Personally, I hope one of their partners is interested in the promise:   Airbus or Arianespace, since they both have indirect access to the billions of central bank created "money" being created by the European Central Bank in the current global financial exigencies.

[gongora]

But competitive pressures from other suppliers of this service, with a lower cost structure, will mitigate against OneWeb's long-term success given the high cost structure they baked in by their strategic decisions and choice of partners.

Compared to anything but SpaceX, OneWeb's cost structure is actually pretty low.

[RedLineTrain]

But competitive pressures from other suppliers of this service, with a lower cost structure, will mitigate against OneWeb's long-term success given the high cost structure they baked in by their strategic decisions and choice of partners.

Compared to anything but SpaceX, OneWeb's cost structure is actually pretty low.

Is that really the case?  Iridium Next seems to have a much better cost structure.  Larger satellites.  Longer lives.

[gongora]

Is that really the case?  Iridium Next seems to have a much better cost structure.  Larger satellites.  Longer lives.

And much, much lower throughput.  Iridium is in a different market.

[RedLineTrain]

Iridium is in a different market.

The markets are different for each and every provider, so I don't know how you can say that OneWeb is cheaper than the rest.  If you believe OneWeb, they don't even compete in the same markets as Starlink!

In any event, RocketGoBoom had a good detailed conversation with Viasat's CEO, who successfully convinced him that Viasat does not have a higher cost structure than OneWeb on a per-bit basis.

[RocketGoBoom]

But competitive pressures from other suppliers of this service, with a lower cost structure, will mitigate against OneWeb's long-term success given the high cost structure they baked in by their strategic decisions and choice of partners.

Compared to anything but SpaceX, OneWeb's cost structure is actually pretty low.

OneWeb's cost per Gbps of capacity launched was calculated as similar to Viasat's cost per Gbps for build plus launch cost.

We ran the numbers here in this topic. I also went into all of these numbers with Viasat's CEO, Mark Dankberg, at an investment conference on March 4th in Orlando. There was a breakout session after his speech where I had the opportunity to dive deep. Mr. Dankberg even showed me his calculations on his laptop, which were similar to ours.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=49937.msg2052941#msg2052941

Mark Dankberg's only issue with the calculations is that they don't include utilization ratio, which is obviously much more favorable for a GEO satellite and helps to make Viasat's more competitive with SpaceX. He did not claim to be lower cost per Gbps of usable capacity, but he said he thinks once gen 3 Viasat is launched, they will be competitive on cost, but not latency.

OneWeb is likely not cost competitive with either SpaceX or Viasat, but of course will have a latency advantage over Viasat. It all depends on if they find a white knight investor to avoid bankruptcy.

[zubenelgenubi]

Do we know if the satellite manufacturing factory is closed due to the pandemic?

If yes, were they manufacturing satellites until they had to secure the facility?

[TorenAltair]

Do we know if the satellite manufacturing factory is closed due to the pandemic?

If yes, were they manufacturing satellites until they had to secure the facility?

Not sure about #1, but they wanted to improve the design, so I assume no sats are currently in storage or made (post a few pages back)

https://twitter.com/brianweeden/status/1225517094575452160

[Rondaz]

Diagram of   @OneWebSatellit1 satellite orbit raising. First launch of 6 sats (blue) at 1180 km operational height. Second launch of 34 sats (cyan) in early stages of orbit raising. Third launch of 34 sats (red) in initial deployment orbit.

https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1241876507984834561

[ChrisWilson68]

From the Wall Street Journal: "SoftBank to Sell $41 Billion in Assets, Plans Big Share Buyback "

It seems they're in no mood to send any more cash OneWeb's way.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-to-sell-41-billion-in-assets-plans-big-share-buyback-11584944934?mod=djemalertNEWS

[RocketGoBoom]

From the Wall Street Journal: "SoftBank to Sell $41 Billion in Assets, Plans Big Share Buyback "

It seems they're in no mood to send any more cash OneWeb's way.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-to-sell-41-billion-in-assets-plans-big-share-buyback-11584944934?mod=djemalertNEWS

I was just going to share that, you beat me to it. 

I suspect SoftBank would be eager to sell their OneWeb investment to a White Knight for just about any price.

Here is a problem though. If I recall, OneWeb sold 100% of their capacity for phase 1 to SoftBank.

https://spacenews.com/other-geo-operators-could-sell-oneweb-capacity-softbank-says/

Then EchoStar, who is also a lesser investor in OneWeb, announced a deal to resell OneWeb capacity.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hughes-oneweb-announce-global-distribution-120000149.html

These extra deals related to OneWeb's capacity make OneWeb's phase 1 constellation much less valuable to any new investor. OneWeb is already committed to using middlemen resellers for 100% of their capacity globally. So yes, that saves OneWeb money on building a sales team. But it also means that OneWeb has already committed to splitting the revenue and profits with other companies.

The only possible investor I can imagine, in this current financial crisis, would be Jeff Bezos (privately) or Amazon. And their main incentive would be to secure the spectrum rights by finishing the current OneWeb constellation under the ITU schedule, then in the future substitute the Amazon Kuiper satellites into orbit as Phase 2 when OneWeb phase 1 nears end of life.

So how would Amazing/Bezos do it? They need to dump the contracts that OneWeb has already committed to. How does that happen? In bankruptcy they can cancel contracts.

If there is going to be a savior for OneWeb, I suspect it will be with senior debtor in possession (DIP) financing. This is a loan that a company can obtain as it enters bankruptcy in order to keep operations going. This type of loan is senior to everything else and gets paid first in bankruptcy over everything else. If Amazon/Bezos are after the OneWeb spectrum, making a $100 million DIP loan to OneWeb as it enters bankruptcy will be the way to make it happen. If nobody else outbids Amazon/Bezos, then they get 100% of OneWeb, without the unfavorable middlemen contracts, and can move forward.

Just my opinion. As always, everyone is welcome to it.

[Rondaz]

In response to halving share price @OneWeb's largest shareholder, @SoftBank, will repurchase 45% of its own shares worth ¥2.5tn to improve cash balance, intends to reduce debt by selling assets from its sprawling portfolio. Analysts' focus is on its $140bn stake in @AlibabaGroup.

https://twitter.com/Megaconstellati/status/1242063358775394304

[Llian Rhydderch]

Eric Berger of Ars Technica has an article up this morning.

Layoffs have already begun.  Other parts remain fuzzy, including how the retrenchment might affect the old plan to accomplish 10 launches during 2020.

OneWeb says it will have to cut workers amid economic crisis

[Asteroza]

Considering Softbank's recent investments in other cellular network extender/relay platforms (notably their work with Aeroenvironment on a high altitude flying wing drone as a cellular relay, aka flying tower HAPS)(joining the HAPS alliance recently, which includes Google Loon and some of the blimp HAPS concepts)(investment in AST & Science work on a bent pipe direct LTE/4G/5G relay satellite system called SpaceMobile using existing cellular provider spectrum authorizations), Softbank is clearly targeting nearterm rural/remote coverage cellular solutions.

OneWeb is nearterm, but ultimately requires a satellite backhaul capable tower near the remote user. While OneWeb could be used to back a HAPS platform, going to direct terrestrial relay at existing cellular frequencies has certain advantages, and might incur less upfront costs.

The Softbank buyback may be due to excessive pressure from activist investors though, including those PE vampire bastards, which is never a good place to be for a company, especially from one that ostensibly should be directly affected by coronavirus economic downturns shortly and shouldn't have time to be playing those kinds of games. The only fly in the ointment is due to recent political pressure in the US to block stock buybacks for companies that request coronavirus bailout funds, there is increasing negative public pressure on companies performing buybacks. As Softbank is now considered a critical company in Japan, it will be a protected company that can access bailout funds should it get overextended during a coronavirus downturn, but those bailout funds may become a more onerous albatross around their neck. At the moment the japanese government coronavirus economic stimulus package in theory doesn't have bailout funds at the large company level and does not have stock buyback blocks yet, but as the japanese government tends to follow US trends, that may change.

[ChrisWilson68]

As Softbank is now considered a critical company in Japan, it will be a protected company that can access bailout funds should it get overextended during a coronavirus downturn

There are two different Softbank companies and it's important to know the difference.

Softbank Corp is a cell phone company in Japan.  It is a publicly traded company.  It does not have any investment in OneWeb.

Softbank Group is a holding company.  It invests in other companies instead of having its own operations.  Softbank Group owns part of Softbank Corp.  It is Softbank Group that has invested in OneWeb (plus WeWork, Uber, Boston Dynamics, and many other companies).

Softbank Corp is a company that provides key infrastructure that the Japanese government is likely to protect.  Not Softbank Group.  So the Japanese government protection will not in any way help OneWeb.

[Rondaz]

.@OneWeb, w/ 74 sats in operation, clears 1st of three new @ITU milestones; @SpaceX Starlink likely will this yr; @Telesat LEO says it'll meet Feb 1, 2023, deadline but has much work to do.

https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/1242484990660624384

[gongora]

https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/1243559492685619200

.@OneWeb to file for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as search for investors, already a struggle, runs into a Covid-19-degraded market. @AirbusSpace @Airbus @OneWebSatellit1. https://bit.ly/3apZeoT

A US bankruptcy filing should be for the satellite production company (OneWeb Satellites).