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

[Inemesit Affia <inemesitaffia@gmail.com>]

There must be some disadvantages to flat sats.

But it's worth noting that China is using them.

Jun 30, 2026 8:51:52 AM David Lang via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>:

> 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
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