[Starlink] Re: Ambani Launches 15 Billion Dollars Space War Against Starlink

[David Lang <david@lang.hm>]

Joe Hamelin wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 21, 2026 at 12:55 PM David Lang via Starlink <
> starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> I think it is going to depend a lot on who their launch provider is and who 
>> their satellite manufacturer is.
>>
>
> Arianespace (a JV of my company and Airbus) just launched 36 Leo sats last
> week.

My point is that SpaceX competitors are paying 3-4x as much for launch services 
(SpaceX list prices are noticably lower than any competitor, and their launch 
costs are 1/4 to 1/3 their list prices)

And if the satellites are build the traditional way, they will cost many times 
what starlink satellites do as well.

so if your costs to get into orbit are ~4x higher for a similar capacity 
satellite, you are going to have a very hard time being competitive.

the satellite industry got into the habit of thinking "launch is expensive, the 
cost of the satellite is trivial in comparison, so we can make the satellite 
more expensive to try and add to the reliability" and "satellites are really 
expensive, so the launch costs don't matter much". It took Elon firing the 
Starlink satellite construction management to break the team out of that 
mindset, have these other companies learned the lesson? or are they going to 
continue the old ways?

I can say that the fact that they all are building traditionally shaped 
satellites that are deployed one or two at a time from a central tower (wasted 
mass and space) with each satellite needing it's own deployment mechanism (more 
complexity and wasted mass) vs the starlink flat-pack/spin-and-release or 
starship pez-dispensor approaches does not give me any reason to believe that 
they have learned the 'cattle not pets' approach to satellite services.

It's possible that some have, but I don't see it yet.

David Lang