Eutelsat OneWeb: Constellation - General Thread

[gongora]

Have any of y'all making a big deal about the ITU deployment deadlines actually looked at the ITU deployment deadlines?  They're quite long.  That 10% deadline really didn't make any difference because the frequencies had already been brought into use with the first launch.  The FCC deadlines are shorter.

[Nomadd]

 Any "investor" would have the same issue Oneweb did. You can't come up with a way to compete with SpaceX by throwing money at the problem. All of these Byzantine monetary/spectrum schemes everybody is coming up with don't come with the vision, skill and willingness to take personal risk that's driving Starlink.
 And, I know about 1/100th as much as Gongora about this stuff, but It's hard to understand the FCC/ITU accepting a pretty much useless system beaming a few test packets back and forth as fulfilling use requirements when the whole thing is stalled out with no real plan to go forward. Not that I've ever understood anything that any government agency did. Maybe that's the way it's written.

[ncb1397]

Any "investor" would have the same issue Oneweb did. You can't come up with a way to compete with SpaceX by throwing money at the problem.

Why? Throwing money at the problem is exactly what SpaceX did. SpaceX was able to raise money recently to throw money at the problem, OneWeb wasn't. Whether that happens again in a few weeks when that cash runs out? Who knows. Presumably, Elon Musk would sell Tesla shares to fund it personally if push comes to shove. What you are basically saying is that nobody can compete with Elon Musk's financial resources? But that really isn't the case.

As far as skill and vision, there is plenty of that elsewhere. Some companies are actually currently providing internet from space, a skill that SpaceX has no practice at. Anyways, in terms of next generation internet constellations, ViaSat 3 and mPower is still out there. Maybe OneWeb continues in some form, maybe it doesn't, but the entire satellite telecom industry isn't exactly going to roll over.

[Robotbeat]

Any "investor" would have the same issue Oneweb did. You can't come up with a way to compete with SpaceX by throwing money at the problem.

Why?...

Because SpaceX pursued a more ambitious program that still managed to be lower cost because they leveraged a vertically integrated supply chain instead of traditional aerospace costs.

But OneWeb could do well if they're able to switch to launching on, say, Falcon 9. $30 million per launch would make them a lot closer to competitive, particularly since they can reach initial operations with fewer satellites than Starlink. OneWeb might also have an advantage on the user terminal side (hard to say, but OneWeb has at least showed some pictures of their phased array antennas whereas SpaceX hasn't).


...and yeah, I *do* think SpaceX would be happy to launch OneWeb. I would've said New Glenn, but that's too far in the future right now (slots available in 2022? optimistically?).

[ulm_atms]

Any "investor" would have the same issue Oneweb did. You can't come up with a way to compete with SpaceX by throwing money at the problem.

Why? Throwing money at the problem is exactly what SpaceX did. SpaceX was able to raise money recently to throw money at the problem, OneWeb wasn't. Whether that happens again in a few weeks when that cash runs out? Who knows. Presumably, Elon Musk would sell Tesla shares to fund it personally if push comes to shove. What you are basically saying is that nobody can compete with Elon Musk's financial resources? But that really isn't the case.

As far as skill and vision, there is plenty of that elsewhere. Some companies are actually currently providing internet from space, a skill that SpaceX has no practice at.

Actually, a lot of people/companies can compete with Elon.  It is just that nobody is willing to take risks/spend money like Elon.  Elon is different in the realm of billionaires as he is not purely focused on maximum profit and doesn't have shareholders to please on the SpaceX side.  One of the reason SpaceX will not go public until they get to a certain spot development wise....they don't want to deal with the profit above all else shareholders.  I don't blame him and I believe it would kill the innovation as instead of plowing the current profit back into R&D....the shareholders would want it because that is all that maters to them.

Oneweb would need to find someone with big pockets, that believes in them and their goal, and it not driven mostly by guaranteed money return......

There is not that many people/companies that fit that description.

Now the reason SpaceX was able to raise money easily and Oneweb not...SpaceX has a lot of collateral and currently has an income stream.......Oneweb does not.

[ncb1397]

But OneWeb could do well if they're able to switch to launching on, say, Falcon 9. $30 million per launch would make them a lot closer to competitive, particularly since they can reach initial operations with fewer satellites than Starlink. OneWeb might also have an advantage on the user terminal side (hard to say, but OneWeb has at least showed some pictures of their phased array antennas whereas SpaceX hasn't).

Launch Costs were pretty irrelevant. They apparently burned through ~$4-5 billion dollars. Maybe ~10% of that was launches and deposits on launches. Seems like everything else was the problem - user terminals, gateways, satellite design, satellite factories, satellite manufacturing, etc. Off the shelf launchers were a relatively minor problem - both technically and financially.

[gongora]

But OneWeb could do well if they're able to switch to launching on, say, Falcon 9. $30 million per launch would make them a lot closer to competitive, particularly since they can reach initial operations with fewer satellites than Starlink. OneWeb might also have an advantage on the user terminal side (hard to say, but OneWeb has at least showed some pictures of their phased array antennas whereas SpaceX hasn't).

Launch Costs were pretty irrelevant. They apparently burned through ~$4-5 billion dollars. Maybe ~10% of that was launches and deposits on launches.

They raised less than $4B.  Their launch contract was estimated around $1.5B, and they probably paid a good percentage of that already.

[ncb1397]

But OneWeb could do well if they're able to switch to launching on, say, Falcon 9. $30 million per launch would make them a lot closer to competitive, particularly since they can reach initial operations with fewer satellites than Starlink. OneWeb might also have an advantage on the user terminal side (hard to say, but OneWeb has at least showed some pictures of their phased array antennas whereas SpaceX hasn't).

Launch Costs were pretty irrelevant. They apparently burned through ~$4-5 billion dollars. Maybe ~10% of that was launches and deposits on launches.

They raised less than $4B.  Their launch contract was estimated around $1.5B, and they probably paid a good percentage of that already.

They have $1.7 billion in debt on top of less than $4 billion in funding. Some of that debt total appears to be people like Arianespace because they owed Arianespace money in the future (for launches), but not all of it. As for $1.5 billion for 21 Soyuz launches? $71 million per Soyuz in bulk sounds high.

The value of Arianespace’s contract is more than $1 billion, pushing the launch firm’s total backlog above $6 billion, officials said.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/07/01/oneweb-launch-deal-called-largest-commercial-rocket-buy-in-history/

edit: what is Ars' source?

Only three of 21 launches planned under a $1.1 billion contract had flown.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/rocket-report-virgin-orbit-takes-final-step-before-launch-delta-iv-on-track/

[Robotbeat]

Well that's partly what this kind of bankruptcy is for: dealing with outstanding debt and no-longer-sustainable contracts for a business that could otherwise work.

[meekGee]

Any "investor" would have the same issue Oneweb did. You can't come up with a way to compete with SpaceX by throwing money at the problem.

Why? Throwing money at the problem is exactly what SpaceX did. SpaceX was able to raise money recently to throw money at the problem, OneWeb wasn't. Whether that happens again in a few weeks when that cash runs out? Who knows. Presumably, Elon Musk would sell Tesla shares to fund it personally if push comes to shove. What you are basically saying is that nobody can compete with Elon Musk's financial resources? But that really isn't the case.

As far as skill and vision, there is plenty of that elsewhere. Some companies are actually currently providing internet from space, a skill that SpaceX has no practice at. Anyways, in terms of next generation internet constellations, ViaSat 3 and mPower is still out there. Maybe OneWeb continues in some form, maybe it doesn't, but the entire satellite telecom industry isn't exactly going to roll over.

SpaceX threw innovation, large vision, and vertical capabilities at the problem.  That made the money a lot more effective.

[ncb1397]

Starlink is the killer app for Falcon, and nobody else has a Falcon. Contrary to others here I do not think SpaceX will choose to launch a competing constellation anytime soon.

They already have committed to do that by selling 2 Falcon 9 launches for SES's mPower constellation. Technically, each launch of mPower would put up about 4-5 terabits per second of capacity - ~4x as much as a starlink v1.0 launch of 60 satellites. It would be pretty hard to gracefully exit that contract without raising eyebrows.

Anyways, the Iridium launch contract was half a billion dollars. The Soyuz deal was probably ~$1 billion. OneWeb on falcon would have likely been significantly more than Iridium. It wasn't the launch vehicle.

[ChrisWilson68]

Well that's partly what this kind of bankruptcy is for: dealing with outstanding debt and no-longer-sustainable contracts for a business that could otherwise work.

Yes, there are Chapter 11 bankruptcies like that.  But in those cases the company declaring Chapter 11 doesn't lay off most of its staff and doesn't talk about auctioning off its assets.

[ChrisWilson68]

But OneWeb could do well if they're able to switch to launching on, say, Falcon 9. $30 million per launch would make them a lot closer to competitive, particularly since they can reach initial operations with fewer satellites than Starlink. OneWeb might also have an advantage on the user terminal side (hard to say, but OneWeb has at least showed some pictures of their phased array antennas whereas SpaceX hasn't).

Launch Costs were pretty irrelevant. They apparently burned through ~$4-5 billion dollars. Maybe ~10% of that was launches and deposits on launches.

They raised less than $4B.  Their launch contract was estimated around $1.5B, and they probably paid a good percentage of that already.

What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that when a company announces funding, that doesn't mean that it gets all the cash immediately.

Funding deals are often structured so that the funding is only paid out over time, and often the payouts are subject to meeting certain milestones.

So just because a company announces it has signed a deal to get $4 billion in funding and then goes bankrupt 2 years later doesn't mean it has actually burned through $4 billion dollars.  It might have only received a portion of the announced funding and won't be able to get the rest of it.

[Mandella]

Well that's partly what this kind of bankruptcy is for: dealing with outstanding debt and no-longer-sustainable contracts for a business that could otherwise work.

Yes, there are Chapter 11 bankruptcies like that.  But in those cases the company declaring Chapter 11 doesn't lay off most of its staff and doesn't talk about auctioning off its assets.

This threw me off initially too. Most companies I've been familiar with used Chapter 11 to get their debts under control so they could continue to do business after a reorganization. OneWeb Chapter 11'ed for the stated purpose of getting their debts under control as to sell themselves off piecemeal.

It's almost like some sort of self imposed Chapter 7. Is this a common thing?

[RocketGoBoom]

Some of the previous comments have indicated that all OneWeb needs is more money and they will be fine against SpaceX.

Over in a SpaceX Starlink topic we did all of the math on costs per Gbps of launched capacity for OneWeb, Viasat, EchoStar HughesNet and SpaceX Starlink. Then I had the opportunity to run those numbers by the CEO of Viasat on March 4th at an investment conference in Orlando. Mark Dankberg (Viasat CEO) actually confirmed our numbers were mostly accurate and showed me his spreadsheet on his laptop doing similar math.

OneWeb has costs per Gbps of capacity (Build plus launch) that are about 600% more expensive than SpaceX Starlink. OneWeb was not even remotely competitive on their expenses. They spent more per satellite, the satellites provided less capacity each (8 gbps vs 20 gbps) and each launch was more expensive (Soyuz vs Falcon 9) and each launch put fewer satellites in orbit (30 vs 60).

It all added up to making OneWeb not even remotely viable. On top of all of that, OneWeb signed a contract with SoftBank letting SoftBank sell all of their capacity, giving up much of their potential upside. Then EchoStar HughesNet got an exclusive worldwide reseller contract, putting another middleman between OneWeb and their customers, taking another slice of profit.

OneWeb, as structured, was a complete mess. Nobody would invest in it. The virus was just the final nail in the coffin.

[ncb1397]

OneWeb has costs per Gbps of capacity (Build plus launch) that are about 600% more expensive than SpaceX Starlink. OneWeb was not even remotely competitive on their expenses. They spent more per satellite, the satellites provided less capacity each (8 gbps vs 20 gbps) and each launch was more expensive (Soyuz vs Falcon 9) and each launch put fewer satellites in orbit (30 vs 60). Later

Why are you using weird numbers? Each launch of OneWeb is 34 launches, not 30. The most recent information on capacity is 10 gbps per satellite^[1].You are ignoring any factor of utilization rate (theoretically, the higher the orbit, the better utilization rate even if the bit rate is lower all things being equal). Cost to design and build satellites is not a publically known factor. We have no data about real world data rates compared to theoretical rates. A lot of this stuff is just made up.


^[1]

OneWeb and its satellite manufacturing partner Airbus Defence and Space have crammed 10 gigabits per second of capacity into spacecraft the size of dishwashers.

https://spacenews.com/how-oneweb-plans-to-make-sure-its-first-satellites-arent-its-last/

[ChrisWilson68]

Starlink is the killer app for Falcon, and nobody else has a Falcon. Contrary to others here I do not think SpaceX will choose to launch a competing constellation anytime soon.

They already have committed to do that by selling 2 Falcon 9 launches for SES's mPower constellation. Technically, each launch of mPower would put up about 4-5 terabits per second of capacity - ~4x as much as a starlink v1.0 launch of 60 satellites. It would be pretty hard to gracefully exit that contract without raising eyebrows.

Anyways, the Iridium launch contract was half a billion dollars. The Soyuz deal was probably ~$1 billion. OneWeb on falcon would have likely been significantly more than Iridium. It wasn't the launch vehicle.

There are several reasons SpaceX might be willing to launch GEO comsats but less willing to launch OneWeb sats or other LEO mega-constellation comsats:

1. GEO comsats compete less-directly with Starlink.  GEO sats will have much higher latency, so Starlink always has that advantage over them.  GEO sats require more power for the signal to be sent from the satellite for the same receiver power, increasing the cost per GB of bandwidth in terms of satellite cost.  They also require more transmit power from the ground equipment.

2. There are already of a lot of GEO comsats out there.  Whatever market share GEO comsats take away from Starlink, there are already a lot of them taking that market share.  Another one won't make much difference.

3. Low launch costs are less critical for GEO comsats.  The satellites themselves are expensive and the launch costs are a relatively smaller share of overall costs.  So SpaceX providing lower launch costs for GEO comsats doesn't much change how many GEO comsats there are competing with Starlink.

As to Iridium, the launch contract was signed years ago, when Starlink was at most an idea, so SpaceX would have had less incentive then to avoid helping Starlink competition.  And Iridium's constellation as a whole provides far too little bandwidth to take much market share from Starlink.

[ncb1397]

Starlink is the killer app for Falcon, and nobody else has a Falcon. Contrary to others here I do not think SpaceX will choose to launch a competing constellation anytime soon.

They already have committed to do that by selling 2 Falcon 9 launches for SES's mPower constellation. Technically, each launch of mPower would put up about 4-5 terabits per second of capacity - ~4x as much as a starlink v1.0 launch of 60 satellites. It would be pretty hard to gracefully exit that contract without raising eyebrows.

Anyways, the Iridium launch contract was half a billion dollars. The Soyuz deal was probably ~$1 billion. OneWeb on falcon would have likely been significantly more than Iridium. It wasn't the launch vehicle.

There are several reasons SpaceX might be willing to launch GEO comsats but less willing to launch OneWeb sats or other LEO mega-constellation comsats:

Who said anything about GEO? mPower is not GEO.

[ChrisWilson68]

Well that's partly what this kind of bankruptcy is for: dealing with outstanding debt and no-longer-sustainable contracts for a business that could otherwise work.

Yes, there are Chapter 11 bankruptcies like that.  But in those cases the company declaring Chapter 11 doesn't lay off most of its staff and doesn't talk about auctioning off its assets.

This threw me off initially too. Most companies I've been familiar with used Chapter 11 to get their debts under control so they could continue to do business after a reorganization. OneWeb Chapter 11'ed for the stated purpose of getting their debts under control as to sell themselves off piecemeal.

It's almost like some sort of self imposed Chapter 7. Is this a common thing?

It's not uncommon.  Chapter 11 gives the company more leeway in how to manage its operations leading up to an asset sale.

[gongora]

SpaceX has said they would not refuse to launch competitors.  Any further discussion on that topic belongs in the SpaceX section, not here.