Launching Starlink with Starship

[TheRadicalModerate]

First, define "break even".  Are you talking about the Starlink making enough revenue to cover its costs?  If so, then all you're doing is providing Starship a steady stream of launches, not funding any other part of its development.
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One way or another, SpaceX operations will fund whatever ambitions Elon has for Mars.

(some creative naming...)... It's difficult really when Starlink and MarsX are the same thing, but one is made to generate money to make the other one possible. Starlink ends up needing to break even because its profits are channeled into MarsX. Or you do the accounting correctly and say Starlink (in 2030) makes a huge profit, all internally reinvested in MarsX.

At best I think you can say is you hope to get a Starlink ROI in 10(?) years ... profit after that...  and then decide if the entire development of SS/SH should fall under that or not.

I've been assuming that Starlink is a separate line item in SpaceX's operations.  Viewed that way, it needs to be massively profitable, even if none of the profit is realized for SpaceX as a whole, because it's all plowed into other projects like Mars.

This does bring up a good question, though:  If Starlink gets spun out as a separate public company, how does SpaceX get its hands on the money?  SpaceX will obviously be a major stockholder, and can sell its share on the open market, but that's gonna get touchy if they want to maintain the stock price.  I guess Starlink can buy the stock from SpaceX; no clue what the rules are on that sort of thing.  Also, it produces a whopping capital gains tax liability for SpaceX, which wouldn't exist if Starlink were still an internal division, where the profits from it could be funged to fund other divisions with the profits never falling to the bottom line.

[Zed_Noir]

The main argument against large, fully reusable rockets is there just isn't anywhere near the launch needed needed to justify them. Even new heavy lift expendables struggle to achieve a high enough launch rate (ask ULA or Ariane), and many industry people were skeptical that F9 would have high enough launch demand to justify even partial reuse. But FULL reuse? of a SUPER heavy lift rocket? the commercial launch demand is about 2 orders of magnitude too small...

If you make a list of things that need a crazy launch rate but that might actually be profitable, the list is incredibly short.

Basically:
1) Space based solar power (100GW requires about 1 megaton at GSO, roughly speaking... a one-time cost, though, every 20-30 years... 30 megatons every 30 years, or about 1 megaton per year could provide the entire globe's electricity requirements). We all know how Musk feels about that.
2) Space-based missile defense. 100,000 "Brilliant Pebbles," each 100 kg each, would mass 10,000 tons. Other concepts may be heavier, on the order of 30,000 to 100,000 tons. Obvious concerns about this idea, plus it requires the government to do it.
3) LEO megaconstellations. 40,000 satellites of 250kg each, would mass about 10,000 tons. Even better, may need to be regularly upgraded. Satellites could grow in mass and number.
4) Point-to-point hypersonic transport. This is about 3 orders of magnitude larger in potential market than 2 or 3 and even larger than #1. maybe 100 million passengers per year, works out to 100,000 flights per year (at high density seating). A flightrate that dwarfs even space-based solar power.

Almost nothing else, except for pure philanthropy, gets close to these.

SpaceX chose the latter two options. #3 is by far the most realistic of the options here. (I suppose there's also space tourism, but...)

So even if you're skeptical about Starlink being a massively profitable cash cow, as long as you think you'll probably be able to break even, then it's a good idea to do it if you care about fully reusable rockets. Because otherwise, you won't have the launchrate to justify a large, fully reusable launch vehicle. There just aren't that many options out there for why anyone would possibly need near the amount of launch capacity that Starship provides.

My thoughts about:

1)  Space based solar power.... We all know how Musk feels about that.

Doesn't matter what Elon thinks. As long as there is a paying customer.

2) Space-based missile defense.

The government can pay to have hosted sensor payloads and mini "Brilliant Pebbles" parasite kinetic kill vehicles aboard a number of Starlink comsats. So this option might not need that much IMLEO as you imply.

3) LEO megaconstellations

Even at doubling your 10000 tonne estimate and service life of individual satcom of about 5 years. That is only 4000 tonnes annually in replacement satcoms. So a high flight rate is not needed.

4) Point-to-point hypersonic transport.

This option likely included freight in addition self mobile cargo. So likely more than 100000  P2P flights annually. But will need time to buildup the transport fleet and ground infrastructure like floating spaceports, ground side logistics and propellants supply. This option replaces most of the long haul air traffic including military airlift.

However you are missing the possibility of Lunar settlements by multiple entities. Which will require a large fleet and high flight rates just for the tanker missions to orbital depots. Since Musk's goals requires afford logistics to Mars, which is even more affordable for cislunar logistics with the shorter travel time.

[Robotbeat]

I think that of course SpaceX will try to make Starlink very profitable to fund Mars. But even if it just breaks even and provides something to pay for Starship...

First, define "break even".  Are you talking about the Starlink making enough revenue to cover its costs?  If so, then all you're doing is providing Starship a steady stream of launches, not funding any other part of its development....

I'm saying Starlink makes enough money to internally pay Starship as much as someone could procure reusable and reused Falcon 9 launches for (with a very large, bulk order).

Falcon 9's launch prices to external customers includes some amortization of development costs.

But actually, even if we DON'T include amortization of Starship development cost, just a complete amortization of launch pad and per-vehicle and marginal costs, it's STILL a large net win to bring more volume to Starship's manifest due to getting further down the learning curve.

[Robotbeat]

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3) LEO megaconstellations

Even at doubling your 10000 tonne estimate and service life of individual satcom of about 5 years. That is only 4000 tonnes annually in replacement satcoms. So a high flight rate is not needed.
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I would say it's high flight rate (in terms of being sufficient for justifying Starship). 4000 tons is about 80 Starship flights per year of early, heavy Starship types to the 400km, inclined orbit of Starlink. That's about enough to justify full reuse of a vehicle that big. Roughly 40 flights per year is probably breakeven for full, rapid reuse, or equivalent to later, refined versions of Starship.

[Robotbeat]

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1)  Space based solar power.... We all know how Musk feels about that.

Doesn't matter what Elon thinks. As long as there is a paying customer.
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It absolutely DOES matter what Elon thinks because Elon can just DECIDE to start a new business, but he can't DECIDE to create a paying customer that isn't (effectively) him. He feels pretty strongly that space-based solar is a fail of a business idea, so he'd never create that business (as that'd be a guaranteed money-sink from his perspective). If SpaceX is fortunate enough that someone else with lots of money wants to pay for it, then good for SpaceX, but we don't see any evidence of that.

Again, these are potential NEW sources of demand that SpaceX could concoct. #1 and #2 are excluded because SpaceX can't concoct them (unless Elon changes his mind about space based solar power).

[Robotbeat]

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However you are missing the possibility of Lunar settlements by multiple entities. Which will require a large fleet and high flight rates just for the tanker missions to orbital depots. Since Musk's goals requires afford logistics to Mars, which is even more affordable for cislunar logistics with the shorter travel time.

Lunar settlements = space tourism, effectively. So yeah, I included it in the side note. But also, space settlements, like Mars, are largely money-sinks, not cash sources or break-even ventures.

If you have a trillion dollars, you can spend it on massively pointless art projects with no practical value if you want. You're not constrained by having to make sense or break even, so I didn't include that here.

(Also, NASA exploration budget counts as an existing source of demand, one which SpaceX already significantly taps into.)

[wannamoonbase]

Look even at Falcon 9's launch manifest this year. 10 of the 16 launches have been Starlink, and it's already September. 6 launches in 9 months is barely enough for even an expendable rocket to be justifiable as you probably need to make around 10 rockets per year for your factory to stay well-oiled. Even Falcon 9's partially reusable economics struggle unless you have the launch demand that Starlink provides.

So profit aside, that's why Starlink would make sense for SpaceX and why it makes sense for it to be so dang huge. SpaceX has to will more launch demand into existence to make fully reusable super heavy lift make sense.

Willing more demand may include Starlink revenue paying for Moon and Mars activity that they can hope will be profitable down the road.

That's one of the reasons I don't think Starlink ever IPO's.  Elon likes control and wants the billions in cash.  Pay back investors with dividends or buy back shares.  He won't want to IPO something as powerful as Starlink.

[Robotbeat]

Look even at Falcon 9's launch manifest this year. 10 of the 16 launches have been Starlink, and it's already September. 6 launches in 9 months is barely enough for even an expendable rocket to be justifiable as you probably need to make around 10 rockets per year for your factory to stay well-oiled. Even Falcon 9's partially reusable economics struggle unless you have the launch demand that Starlink provides.

So profit aside, that's why Starlink would make sense for SpaceX and why it makes sense for it to be so dang huge. SpaceX has to will more launch demand into existence to make fully reusable super heavy lift make sense.

Willing more demand may include Starlink revenue paying for Moon and Mars activity that they can hope will be profitable down the road.

That's one of the reasons I don't think Starlink ever IPO's.  Elon likes control and wants the billions in cash.  Pay back investors with dividends or buy back shares.  He won't want to IPO something as powerful as Starlink.

Elon doesnt think mars or moon will be profitable in the industrial sense. he is on record saying there is nothing worth exporting from mars and certainly doesnt buy into lunar mining hype. itis only in th space tourissm sense (or nasa services sense) they could be profitable.

spacex could spin off starlink to genrate cash for mars city. conceivably

[RedLineTrain]

I half expect SpaceX to eventually buy Iridium and introduce a Super Iridium constellation piggybacking on the Starlink condosat.  Lower the altitude, crank up the sat power, drastically increase the sat count.

Megaconstellations and reusable rockets have long been known as the ultimate pairing.

[Zed_Noir]

....
However you are missing the possibility of Lunar settlements by multiple entities. Which will require a large fleet and high flight rates just for the tanker missions to orbital depots. Since Musk's goals requires afford logistics to Mars, which is even more affordable for cislunar logistics with the shorter travel time.

Lunar settlements = space tourism, effectively. So yeah, I included it in the side note. But also, space settlements, like Mars, are largely money-sinks, not cash sources or break-even ventures.
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If there is a large Starship fleet for going to Mars. Those Starships can be use to cheaply land payloads on the Lunar surface when not engage in Mars operations.

[Malatrope]

There has been some talk implying that one needs to export something in order to make money off a venture. I don't agree. Mars (or the Moon) can build an in-situ civilization without exporting a thing. Once they are self-sufficient, they will discover things to trade, but their internal markets will generate wealth regardless of exports.

But if one duplicates a trillion-dollar economy on another platform, there is then two trillion dollars of total wealth to be moved around. The heavy lift capability of Starship and its successors is critically required to jump-start this development. Musk is thinking strategically, very long term, and it's reasonably useless to try to predict where these things are going by looking myopically at the immediate financial gain or loss. Starship is the steam locomotive carrying cargo and people into a solar system wide human civilization.

My humble opinion only, of course. But let's not get lost in the close-up details that seem pointless or unprofitable. Like every new venture, all of this will be a money sink only up until it succeeds.

[Robotbeat]

There has been some talk implying that one needs to export something in order to make money off a venture. I don't agree. Mars (or the Moon) can build an in-situ civilization without exporting a thing. Once they are self-sufficient, they will discover things to trade, but their internal markets will generate wealth regardless of exports.

But if one duplicates a trillion-dollar economy on another platform, there is then two trillion dollars of total wealth to be moved around. The heavy lift capability of Starship and its successors is critically required to jump-start this development. Musk is thinking strategically, very long term, and it's reasonably useless to try to predict where these things are going by looking myopically at the immediate financial gain or loss. Starship is the steam locomotive carrying cargo and people into a solar system wide human civilization.

My humble opinion only, of course. But let's not get lost in the close-up details that seem pointless or unprofitable. Like every new venture, all of this will be a money sink only up until it succeeds.

Not everything needs to be profitable in order to be worth doing! Charity is not profitable and doesn't even break-even (for the "investor", but we DO hope for society as a whole).

BUT by definition a philanthropists can't GET money from a charity operation (or it's no longer a charity). That's a big distinction. Starlink isn't a charity, but even if it's not hugely profitable but only break-even, it dramatically enhances launch capacity.

We need MARKETS. You know, things that will provide demand for launch while paying for themselves. Philanthropic projects (like establishing a self-sustaining civilization where the return may be huge but super far in the future and the returns will hopefully go to the settlers and so isn't bankable) is nice, but it requires money from people who want to give that money away and don't expect a monetary return. Starlink is one of the few non-philanthropic projects that provide enough useful demand even if not hugely profitable.

[TheRadicalModerate]

We're sliding off-topic.  Financing of Starship via Starlink, and how you structure the launches seems close enough on-topic, but the biz case (or lack thereof) of lunar and martian settlement doesn't.

[Malatrope]

We're sliding off-topic.  Financing of Starship via Starlink, and how you structure the launches seems close enough on-topic, but the biz case (or lack thereof) of lunar and martian settlement doesn't.

Not necessarily, but I'll leave it at the point that Starship is the locomotive to launch Starlink, and all the following traffic  required to build non-terrestrial activity. The design of Starship needs to be able to easily launch and maintain the Starlink system, and be flexible enough to handle any other similar jobs that will inevitably arise. This isn't a biz case argument, it's a strategic argument to cuts to the heart of Musk's vision and his ability to pull it off.

I fully expect expect Starship to be developed as a general transporter, and not spun off into a myriad of special-purpose vehicles that depend on government funding (I'm looking at you, Lunar Starship HLS) with their own unique requirements and support structure. You made a good case for one way to fill the payload bay with Starlink satellites, but I think we may see a more modular approach, ala standard shipping containers. This would support future work, rather than becoming a dedicated ship that exists to service the Starlink constellation.

[Robotbeat]

Okay, but the thread title is "Launching Starlink with Starship."

[TheRadicalModerate]

I fully expect expect Starship to be developed as a general transporter, and not spun off into a myriad of special-purpose vehicles that depend on government funding (I'm looking at you, Lunar Starship HLS) with their own unique requirements and support structure. You made a good case for one way to fill the payload bay with Starlink satellites, but I think we may see a more modular approach, ala standard shipping containers. This would support future work, rather than becoming a dedicated ship that exists to service the Starlink constellation.

I don't know of any way of deploying a bunch of Starlinks on-orbit from a shipping container, or any other modular system.

[GregA]

I don't know of any way of deploying a bunch of Starlinks on-orbit from a shipping container, or any other modular system.

He means have a standard Starship that's used in lots of different ways.
Rather than modifying Starship types for a variety of different types of missions.

You made a good case for one way to fill the payload bay with Starlink satellites, but I think we may see a more modular approach, ala standard shipping containers.

I agree generally that it should be standardised.

But if it can be particularly more efficient for a customer who wants a lot of launches, maybe there's some scope.

[Robotbeat]

Sounds like an idea for a new thread!

[TheRadicalModerate]

He means have a standard Starship that's used in lots of different ways.
Rather than modifying Starship types for a variety of different types of missions.

I'm assuming that too.

I agree generally that it should be standardised.

But if it can be particularly more efficient for a customer who wants a lot of launches, maybe there's some scope.

The beauty of the modern shipping container is not that it's a great way to load and deploy cargo.  Rather it's a great way to transship cargo, which turns out to be more expensive than the deployment problem--at least on Earth.   But for Starlink and a whole bunch of other satellites, reliable deployment is everything, because there is no transshipment happening.

Beyond that, for Starlink, you also want to minimize deployment debris.  The tensioning rods aren't perfect in this regard, but they're vastly better than some kind of standardized container tossed into space.  If you want to re-use the containers, you can't stack stuff on top of one another, then unstack and deploy it in orbit, without a huge amount of complexity.  Deployment complexity scares the bejeezus out of your customers.

When you get to lunar or martian surface deployments, containers make a lot more sense.  But for satellites?  Not happening any time soon.

[Malatrope]

He means have a standard Starship that's used in lots of different ways.
Rather than modifying Starship types for a variety of different types of missions.

I'm assuming that too.

I agree generally that it should be standardised.

But if it can be particularly more efficient for a customer who wants a lot of launches, maybe there's some scope.

The beauty of the modern shipping container is not that it's a great way to load and deploy cargo.  Rather it's a great way to transship cargo, which turns out to be more expensive than the deployment problem--at least on Earth.   But for Starlink and a whole bunch of other satellites, reliable deployment is everything, because there is no transshipment happening.

Beyond that, for Starlink, you also want to minimize deployment debris.  The tensioning rods aren't perfect in this regard, but they're vastly better than some kind of standardized container tossed into space.  If you want to re-use the containers, you can't stack stuff on top of one another, then unstack and deploy it in orbit, without a huge amount of complexity.  Deployment complexity scares the bejeezus out of your customers.

When you get to lunar or martian surface deployments, containers make a lot more sense.  But for satellites?  Not happening any time soon.

I took Robotbeat's patient advice and started a topic on this subject:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51968.new;

You make a good point about satellites, but my original thinking was indeed for colony-building (on a surface or a free-flying facility) rather than the general satellite population. The shipping volume will be orders of magnitude greater. Also, I was thinking more about a standard interfacing method rather than a physical container, as in load attachment geometry, gripping points for handling, signal connectors, digital interface standards, and so forth.