Over twice as much as everyone else combined. A chart from 22Q1:
They have stretched out the scale so much that they had to put Rocket Lab, etc. in their own separate box.
Even without Starship, they could probably double this again without breaking a sweat, if the demand were there.
Yeah. And it looks like their Falcon 9 boosters are easily exceeding the ‘ten flights before major overhaul’ limit initially set. So not only are the flights getting cheaper, but the inventory of avalable boosters will grow which should allow them to increase the flight rate.
And if Starship works, SpaceX is going to stop Falcon 9 production and focus on Starship, using the current F9 cores for Falcon launches until Starship is fully proven and in regular service. At that point, SpaceX’s ability to put mass in orbit will go up by at least an order of magnitude.
And none of this was subsidized or pushed by government. If Starship works and drives down the cost of launch by 10X, Elon Musk will be responsible for it. It was a massive risk and he put up his own money (and that of his private investors), and gave his engineers freedom to innovate and make radical changes.
I can’t think of another CEO who would have scrapped many millions of dollars of sunk costs in composite tooling and fiber mandrels because an engineer came to him and said, “You know, I think there’s a better way…”
I’d forgotten that they submitted anything at all (as you note, they weren’t one of the final three contenders). I refreshed myself on the details:
Well, this is interesting:
The NASA inspector general launched an investigation after Boeing attempted to change the details of the submission, potentially indicating that Boeing had received information about other bids.[5]
Which led to a resignation of a NASA associate administrator:
Boeing and industrial espionage go together like chocolate and peanut butter.
Looks like the kerfuffle regarding Starlink in Ukraine isn’t really having any effect on its use in other critical areas:
That said, it appears that SpaceX is not making the same mistake they made previously, and will ask for money in advance.
I’m fine with the government guaranteeing reasonable payment for our authorized use of Starlink in Ukraine. We could also invent some kind of tax break for donated services of this kind. I have a feeling Musk is already getting more business and company value out of this than any actual costs but there’s no reason to dissuade any company from aiding our allies in this manner.
Just breaking even is undoubtedly a benefit. The more satellites they can lift, the better the experience is for everyone–even beyond the proportional effects. Doubling the capacity in some area more than doubles the number of users you can support at a given service level. And the additional visibility, even if some of it is negative, is also certainly a benefit. So yes, paying some ongoing costs probably still puts them in the black overall.
Competition would be nice, of course. But no one is even close right now. Perhaps Amazon’s effort will be competitive in 5 years.