And, as pointed out above, it shows that SpaceX is more than a little “decoupled” from Starlink which makes the anti-trust people mollified. For now, anyway.

Side note – Starlink just raised its rate per month from $99 to $110, but them’s the breaks. Thanks, Joe!

From the article:

Analysts said SpaceX — with its already high flight rate and inventory of reusable boosters — was likely to be the best bet for OneWeb to get the rest of its satellites up quickly.

Reusability shows its advantages yet again. SpaceX was chosen because of its availability, which exists because of reusability.

I can’t find the quote, but I keep saying that Red Adair famously said, “I can do it fast; I can do it cheap; I can do it well. Choose two.” As a startup, SpaceX has been able to accomplish improvements in all three. The challenge is for other launch companies to compete. Blue Origin and Rocket Lab are the first two to try.

Competition: it makes the world a better place.

geoffc wrote: “I am surprised. Launching a direct competitor.”

I am not surprised. In the short run, it is revenue, which SpaceX needs to develop its current projects. In the long run, it is competition, which SpaceX desires. This also puts pressure on SpaceX to launch at a higher cadence than it would otherwise have done, desirable in both the short run and the long run.

A company that rests on its laurels gets surprised by its competition. A company that continues to innovate and improve surprises the competition.

I tend to agree with other speculations about the benefits that SpaceX gains by doing this deal — especially Robert’s point that the Russian snub on OneWeb is not as hurtful as Russia may have intended. It looks to me as though everyone wins, except for the Russians and Arianespace which is unlikely to ever trust a partnership with Russia ever again. In a way, that may be a long-term win for Arianespace, too.

Steve,
A decades ago Planetary Resources had this in mind in order to fund development of its asteroid mining business. Unfortunately, this did not work out for them, though. Maybe it makes better business sense now.

However, it is sometimes wiser to limit the number of things that a satellite does. In the past few decades, they would make large satellites that did a lot of things, but this was partly in response to the expense of satellites and the expense of launches. These days both cost less, so it makes more sense to specialize the satellites and reduce the complications that come from having multiple payloads on one satellite.

I was not aware of this. Mr. Musk is a rare individual. He’s got a game plan and it seems that money isn’t everything to him. In his case it seems to be more of a vision than a game plane.

Question who would design and build it?

——–
How Starlink satellites work. The current version of each Starlink satellite weighs 573 lbs. (260 kilograms) and is, according to Sky & Telescope magazine, roughly the size of a table.Jan 7, 2022

For OneWeb, I think the business case is quite simple: They can’t afford to wait to complete the constellation, and no one else can do it remotely as fast as SpaceX. As is, SpaceX can’t get them done by August (there’s not enough time), as would have happened with Soyuz.

As for SpaceX, it’s revenue to book. Both Elon and Gwynne have been on the record repeatedly that SpaceX would be happy to launch competing constellations if they ask to buy launches. I expect there are a number of reasons for this, not least of which is that they are not a full overlap for market reach.

mpthompson: The connection might not be logical, but emotional. Musk’s quick response with Starlink to help the Ukraine indicates who he favors (though of course that action also got him more business and good PR). In this case, picking up OneWeb’s launches from Russia bites the Ukraine’s opponent. While it is doubtful Russia would have ever launched those satellites, this deal guarantees it.

I fail to see the connection here. If OneWeb was without a launch provider because Arianespace proved to be unflyable for some other reason, I presume SpaceX would have made the same offer. Well, perhaps the terms might be a bit different, but that is impossible to know. I suspect JhonB is correct in that this will somehow help Starlink in India.

In any case, it is indeed good news that SpaceX can help out in this way. I wonder if OneWeb will end up paying less, in the long run, to launch their constellation due to this deal.

Steve Richter: In a word, no. Starlink satellites are designed for communications. Putting a telescope on them would make both purposes fail, while raising their cost.

Also, a larger telescope doesn’s so much see farther, but has a higher resolution, so that it can sharply focus smaller and thus more distant objects. Because of the Earth’s atmosphere, however, a much smaller telescope in space can see far better than a bigger telescop on Earth, because the atmosphere blurs the image.

For example, Hubble has a primary mirror 2.4 meters across. Yet it can view distant faint and tiny objects much better than the 10-meter mirror of the Keck Telescopes in Hawaii.

Col Beausabre: Fixed it for you, I think.

“The United Aircraft and Transport Corporation was formed in 1929, when William Boeing of Boeing Airplane & Transport Corporation teamed up with Frederick Rentschler of Pratt & Whitney to form a large, vertically-integrated, amalgamated firm, uniting business interests in all aspects of aviation—a combination of aircraft engine and airframe manufacturing and airline business, to serve all aviation markets, both civil aviation (cargo, passenger, private, air mail) and military aviation.

With headquarters at Hartford, Connecticut, the holding company controlled the stock of the Boeing Airplane Company of Seattle, the Chance Vought Corporation, the Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Company (a propeller manufacturer), and the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company, an aeroengine manufacturer. Sikorsky Aviation Corporation, the Stearman Aircraft Company of Wichita, Kansas, and the Standard Steel Propeller Company were added to United’s portfolio shortly thereafter, followed by several more airlines brought into the fold. The airline interests were soon grouped under a new management company known as United Air Lines, Inc. However, the individual airlines (as well as the individual companies held by United) continued to operate under their own names.

After the Air Mail scandal of 1934, the U.S. government concluded that such large holding companies as United Aircraft and Transport were anti-competitive, and new antitrust laws were passed forbidding airframe or engine manufacturers from having interests in airlines. This law forced United Aircraft and Transport to split into three separate companies. Its manufacturing interests east of the Mississippi River (Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, Vought, and Hamilton Standard Propeller Company) were merged as United Aircraft Corporation (later United Technologies Corporation), headquartered in Hartford with Rentschler as president. The western manufacturing interests (including Northrop Aviation Corporation, formerly Avion Corporation), became Boeing Airplane Company, headquartered in Seattle. The airline interests were merged into a single airline, United Air Lines.”

The problem was that Boeing was giving preference to United Airlines over its competitors in the price and delivery of the most advanced airliner of the day, the Model 247, giving it a competitive advantage

Having a competitor to Starlink a customer of SpaceX helps make the case the later is not making “sweet heart deals” with the former in violation of anti-trust statutes.

What was the 247? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_247

Also, note that Vought, Pratt & Whitney and Hamilton Standard combined to build 12,571 copies of the immortal F4U Corsair carrier based fighter of World War 2 and Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F4U_Corsair

JhonB: Woo-hoo! Excellent catch. I think you are right, it could very well be that part of the deal required OneWeb to use its influence to clear away this India problem for Starlink.

I just don’t see an upside in turning down the business that matches the upside in taking the business, the cash, and the good will.

From OneWeb’s perspective, it’s seems like an easy decision. Their only competitive interest in SpaceX as a launch provider is that it’s a shared company with Starlink. But how big a boost is it to Starlink that SpaceX gets another dozen launches? Probably not very much. And launching via SpaceX will get their satellites on orbit and returning revenue vastly sooner than any other possible provider.

One would also assume that Elon is sufficiently confident in Starlink that he is not concerned about competition from OneWeb.

The case for doing business completely eclipsed the “business case” here. As Bob said, the good will/PR coup alone is something that just cannot be bought with money these days.

David Eastman: Fixed already. Thank you though.

Makes an amazing example of how they can keep their launch business disconnected from their services (Starlink) business.

Well done SpaceX indeed!