Just to confirm you are aware that spaceX will likely have the largest deployed fleet of satellites with optical links? They will have not just studies, but hands on experience operating these things at scale in space to space communication.
Europe loves to come out with these white papers and industry studies and collaborations. It's basically an exercise to hoover up govt funding. The commercial side is very weak in most cases.
They've been pushing Galileo as taking over the market AND making a ton of money in the GPS space. No way. "Due to be fully operational by 2008, Galileo would have “a four-year monopoly on the improved technology before Americans can catch up,” making the 4 billion system a profit center for the EU."
Arianspace is supposed to be launched Ariene 6 at half the price of SpaceX. "“Ariane 6 will have twice the mass and twice the volume of the Falcon 9, at less than twice the price,” Bonguet said. SpaceX is at $50M retail launch price, and cost like likely < $30M per launch internally. So this means Ariene 6 pricing is going to be in $25M range?
It can get a bit tiring to hear these things.
The one thing Europe is good at is putting attorneys and lawyers to take down US companies rather than actually competing with them.
You are aware that some of the bidding companies were operating satellite constellations when Elon was at school? Think their collective hands on experience of satellite telecoms might even exceed SpaceX's beta program! And if I was going to bat for the superiority of SpaceX (and US programs) to the European space industry, accuracy of projections and the proportion of revenue coming from government really, really isn't where I'd focus...
I am - I've used their products. I don't think you realize how expensive their products have been historically.
These were govt / large industry class products. They had a market because of carriage requirement and govt contract. ie, large container ships could only use certified products and these guys were only products out there. This all may have changed (I'm 6+ years away from details).
And no - these large players generally have not needed to use optical space links - they are much higher orbit so can downlink on land in almost all cases.
By the same token, operating mission critical satcoms for the entire global shipping fleet is quite different from running a beta program for 10k customers with an uncharacteristically frank admission they're not sure whether it'll scale up to work properly in urban areas...
Which is fantastic - and hopefully Galileo can deliver both the 1cm and the free option - I personally never saw the pie in sky galileo revenue fantasies as anything other than hot air.
Europe loves to come out with these white papers and industry studies and collaborations. It's basically an exercise to hoover up govt funding. The commercial side is very weak in most cases.
They've been pushing Galileo as taking over the market AND making a ton of money in the GPS space. No way. "Due to be fully operational by 2008, Galileo would have “a four-year monopoly on the improved technology before Americans can catch up,” making the 4 billion system a profit center for the EU."
Arianspace is supposed to be launched Ariene 6 at half the price of SpaceX. "“Ariane 6 will have twice the mass and twice the volume of the Falcon 9, at less than twice the price,” Bonguet said. SpaceX is at $50M retail launch price, and cost like likely < $30M per launch internally. So this means Ariene 6 pricing is going to be in $25M range?
It can get a bit tiring to hear these things.
The one thing Europe is good at is putting attorneys and lawyers to take down US companies rather than actually competing with them.