the V2 mini satllites do not have the same capability as the full V2 satellites, they are cut down in capacity as well as in size to fit them on a Falcon 9. I would not be surprised to see v2 satellites launched on Starship later this year. Gwen Shotwell said late last year that they had a quarter of Starlink having positive cash flow, and that it's expected to be profitable in 2023 David Lang On Sun, 30 Apr 2023, Dave Taht via Starlink wrote: > Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2023 05:48:20 -0700 > From: Dave Taht via Starlink > Reply-To: Dave Taht > To: Dave Taht via Starlink > Subject: [Starlink] a bit more starship news > > Aside from using triggering words, like "shrapnel", rather than > debris, this is a pretty good, and profoundly negative summary of the > Starship launch. https://youtu.be/ErDuVomNd9M > > Nit: I get bugged by folk like this raising local environmental > concerns, as if you make the half an hour long drive to the launch > site, there are plenty of wetlands to spare. Obliterating 1000 > diameter meters of it, turning it into a concrete strewn wasteland, > (and not coated with hypergolic poisons) for a launch site, seems > trivial compared to oh, paving over manhattan, or what it took to > build out towns like brownsville in the first place, and reminds me of > the enormous fight to save the snail darter.[1] > > This also, was a fair minded summary of the negatives of where things > stand: https://thenext30trips.com/p/scrappy-special-edition and what > seems to me to be a great suggestion in locating the launch site *just > offshore*, in the comments. > > Anyway, over here was a summary of what actually happened, according > to Musk. The pad damage was not what caused the shutdown of 3 engines, > and requalifying the ATS is what will take the most time. Still > projecting 4-5 flights this year. > > https://twitter.com/JackKuhr/status/1652466221390913536 > > I note that my principal interest, at least, in the short term, was in > thinking about how the Starship development timeline affects the > starlink rollout. The "v2" satellites already constructed are > effectively already obsolete, and their technologies being shrunk down > into the v2 minis and successors, and the network behaviors themselves > continually optimized. Right now I think it will be 2+ years before > the first meaningful launch of the larger starlink satellites on > Starship, and at the same time the flight rate of the falcons keeps > getting better and better. I would kind of expect the "v3 mini" to > have roughly the same throughput as the v2s at an ongoing half the > size. > > Starlink is now well over a billion dollar a year revenue business, > which is insanely better than what iridium achieved before entering > bankruptcy (Iridium was under 70k users as best as I recall around > then). Whatever spacex and starlink are spending on R&D makes me > shudder. I am finding it odd that they have stopped publishing user > growth numbers - small personal data point: in working with libreqos > users, I am hearing about a 40% rate of folk that switched from WISP > to starlink and back - so customer retention might be a problem as > soon as someone finds a better service elsewhere. Another number I am > trying to track is the useful life of the v1s - projected to last 5 > years. There are 70+% of the first launch still operational. ( > https://twitter.com/VirtuallyNathan is an ongoing sump of info) > > [1] https://twitter.com/JackKuhr/status/1652466221390913536 > > -- > AMA March 31: https://www.broadband.io/c/broadband-grant-events/dave-taht > Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC > _______________________________________________ > Starlink mailing list > Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink