Russia places extraordinary demands on OneWeb prior to satellite launch

Cooperation in space among Russia and the West has been stripped to the bone.

Read the whole story

 

[Statistical]

It seems that the Russians are willingly digging their own grave economically. How can they be trusted by international investors after this, if this is their response to the current situation? They MUST know how this, yet they seem dead set on continuing down this path.

This is an interesting conundrum, because if Russians believe your position, then they can create a temporary economic boost by simply not paying back any of their debt and by eliminating all equity claims from foreign owners.

Normally this would create a death spiral, but investors have short memories and will come back for Russian bonds in the future (just like every other sovereign default). If done in coordination with China for future financing, could be an unprecedented geopolitical realignment.

Just the opposite is happening short term. Russia has about $478 billion in foreign debt and about $630 billion in foreign reserves. e.g. on balance, they are a net saver.

But almost 2/3 of those foreign assets have been frozen, possibly for decades. They effectively went from net surplus to net deficit overnight. By disavowing their debt, at best they would be getting back to neutral. China may happily loan money, but ask Sri Lanka what kind of terms to expect.

This was actually an enormous unforced error by the US government. What is the point of central bank foreign reserves if they vanish at the whim of the US? Every single central bank in the world should be considering severely reducing their purchases of US treasuries.

It isn't just US dollars. Every major goverment has frozen Russian central bank assets. If Russia has zero dollars and all Euros (or Pounds or Yen) they would have the same problem.

The only major currency holding not being frozen is Chinese Yuan. So yeah those are your choices:
a) don't be such an aggressive sociopath and danger to the world that you are subject to unprecedented step of freezing your central bank assets
b) hold all of it in Chinese Yuan the most manipulated major currency in the world

I think the US takes our status as the world's reserve currency for granted. There is a serious risk to losing the currency war and the Yuan becoming the world's reserve currency. This cannot be overstated.

The loss of access to central bank reserves is a global watershed moment for central banks.

Once again it wasn't just dollars. Russia wasn't holding dollars and only dollars out of some magical respect for dollar as the reseve currency. They were holding foreign currency reserves OBTAINED THROUGH TRADE. All of them have been frozen with the exception of the Yuan. My understanding is their largest foreign currency holding was euros not dollars.

I do find the huge amount of concern trolling about sanctions in the last few days somewhat suspicious.
It is happening as evidence mounts that sanctions are having a catastrophic impact on the Russian economy. For once globalization is working in our favor. In turns out Russia is rather dependant on the world economy and thus if the world has the resolve to act the world has quite a bit of leverage over Russia. If this was a US unilateral action it would be far less effective but it isn't.

"Sanctions will never do anything we shouldn't try that" Also "Sanctions may be too powerful we shouldn't do that."

 

[blackhawk887]

Just agree to the demands. Don't adhere to them but definitely agree to them. This will either free the hostaged satellites or shine an even brighter light on Russia's Russia-ness. (I'm guessing the latter.)

Don't agree to them. The launches are already paid for. Either Russia follows through with what they already agreed to do and took money for, or no Western country or company will ever buy another Russian launch.

The US can make it almost impossible for another country to get any foreign launches. See: China.

 

[jhymesba2]

Why isn't OneWeb just "agreeing" to these terms and then tell Russia to get f... err that there has been a change of plans late,r once the starts are done?
I mean, it doesn't sound as if there is any base of trust anyway, and these demands are probably a breach of contract too... soo... might as well burn the last bridges too to get these satellite into the air. It's not as if OneWeb will ask Russia for launches ever again after this.

If you break agreement with Russia, that gives them pretext to engage in a whole new round of military hostilities. Like firing rockets at all your satellites. Didn't Russia just, like 2 months ago or 3, do a "demonstration" of destroying one of their own satellites with an anti-satellite rocket?

Russia and what army is going to do that?

They demonstrated anti-satellite capability. They didn’t demonstrate that they have a large number of them.

Also, Russia has demonstrated a capability that we demonstrated back in 1985, and again in 2008, this time on a satellite that was being deorbited, from a US Navy ship. This shit isn't new.

Russia might shoot down our satellites, but we'll make it clear that we have the ability to respond in kind, and even make an example out of another deorbiting satellite (maybe one of our own, maybe a Russian one), and then say, "This is a war you don't want. You already have one of these. Don't make it two."

 

[blackhawk887]

It seems that the Russians are willingly digging their own grave economically. How can they be trusted by international investors after this, if this is their response to the current situation? They MUST know how this, yet they seem dead set on continuing down this path.

This is an interesting conundrum, because if Russians believe your position, then they can create a temporary economic boost by simply not paying back any of their debt and by eliminating all equity claims from foreign owners.

Normally this would create a death spiral, but investors have short memories and will come back for Russian bonds in the future (just like every other sovereign default). If done in coordination with China for future financing, could be an unprecedented geopolitical realignment.

Just the opposite is happening short term. Russia has about $478 billion in foreign debt and about $630 billion in foreign reserves. e.g. on balance, they are a net saver.

But almost 2/3 of those foreign assets have been frozen, possibly for decades. They effectively went from net surplus to net deficit overnight. By disavowing their debt, at best they would be getting back to neutral. China may happily loan money, but ask Sri Lanka what kind of terms to expect.

This was actually an enormous unforced error by the US government. What is the point of central bank foreign reserves if they vanish at the whim of the US? Every single central bank in the world should be considering severely reducing their purchases of US treasuries.

It isn't just US dollars. Every major goverment has frozen Russian central bank assets. If Russia has zero dollars and all Euros (or Pounds or Yen) they would have the same problem.

The only major currency holding not being frozen is Chinese Yuan. So yeah those are your choices:
a) don't be such an aggressive sociopath and danger to the world that you are subject to unprecedented step of freezing your central bank assets
b) hold all of it in Chinese Yuan the most manipulated major currency in the world

I think the US takes our status as the world's reserve currency for granted. There is a serious risk to losing the currency war and the Yuan becoming the world's reserve currency. This cannot be overstated.

The loss of access to central bank reserves is a global watershed moment for central banks.

Really. Which countries in the top 20 or so economies trusts China more than the US when it comes to trade? After Russia, I don't see a single one.

 

[Tormesa]

Without Western funds the Russia space agency has almost no future.

 

[mhalpern]

Do business with corrupt oligarchs, get fucked.

Womp womp.

"And while SpaceX may agree to launch a competitor's satellites, the price would not be cheap. Nor would OneWeb likely want to enrich the company trying to better its own satellite network."

I doubt SpaceX would gouge them - they'd probably charge the same they charge everyone else.

Question is if even THEY can sustain the increase in cadence. If you consider, before taking on any orphan payloads, they were already approaching about 40+ in their yearly manifest, the orphan payloads could push that closer to 60,

 

[50me12]

Why isn't OneWeb just "agreeing" to these terms and then tell Russia to get f... err that there has been a change of plans late,r once the starts are done?
I mean, it doesn't sound as if there is any base of trust anyway, and these demands are probably a breach of contract too... soo... might as well burn the last bridges too to get these satellite into the air. It's not as if OneWeb will ask Russia for launches ever again after this.

If you break agreement with Russia, that gives them pretext to engage in a whole new round of military hostilities. Like firing rockets at all your satellites. Didn't Russia just, like 2 months ago or 3, do a "demonstration" of destroying one of their own satellites with an anti-satellite rocket?

Russia and what army is going to do that?

They demonstrated anti-satellite capability. They didn’t demonstrate that they have a large number of them.

Agreed, Russia's ability to deploy their resources / the amount they have is SERIOUSLY in question now.

What we've seen so far indicates that Russia's ability to wield their weapons has been shockingly poor. Their troops are short on food, they do amphibious landings 40km from their target seemingly out of fear of any kind of confrontation... Vehicles running out of food, convoys operating alone without support ... LOTS of old equipment. No air superiority.

There's plenty of reason to doubt Russia's capabilities of all kinds outside massing large numbers of hungry / demoralized conscripts.

 

[Statistical]

Why isn't OneWeb just "agreeing" to these terms and then tell Russia to get f... err that there has been a change of plans late,r once the starts are done?
I mean, it doesn't sound as if there is any base of trust anyway, and these demands are probably a breach of contract too... soo... might as well burn the last bridges too to get these satellite into the air. It's not as if OneWeb will ask Russia for launches ever again after this.

If you break agreement with Russia, that gives them pretext to engage in a whole new round of military hostilities. Like firing rockets at all your satellites. Didn't Russia just, like 2 months ago or 3, do a "demonstration" of destroying one of their own satellites with an anti-satellite rocket?

Russia and what army is going to do that?

They demonstrated anti-satellite capability. They didn’t demonstrate that they have a large number of them.

Agreed, Russia's ability to deploy their resources / the amount they have is SERIOUSLY in question now.

What we've seen so far indicates that Russia's ability to wield their weapons has been shockingly poor. Their troops are short on food, they do amphibious landings 40km from their target seemingly out of fear of any kind of confrontation... Vehicles running out of food, convoys operating alone without support ... LOTS of old equipment. No air superiority.

There's plenty of reason to doubt Russia's capabilities of all kinds outside massing large numbers of hungry / demoralized conscripts.

Communicating in the clear (no encryption or frequency hopping). Unable to secure air dominance after a week. Leaving logistical convoys unsecured. Has used a relatively small number of long range precision missiles (don't have them? don't work? can't afford more?)

Outside of brutal war crime level tactics and nuclear weapons Russia is turning out to be a paper bear.

 

[acefsw]

Re economic sanctions, US dollar, Russian holdings and so forth, (I'm on my phone and don't feel like editing all the quotes).

Read this article this morning. Not a complete breakdown of where Russian oligarchs keep their money, but here's a rough idea,

"Russia’s billionaires control roughly 30 percent of the nation’s wealth — compared with roughly 15 percent in Germany and the United States — and have about as much financial wealth stashed in offshore foreign accounts as the entire Russian population has in Russia itself"

So, yes, their holdings are global and diversified because it's the result of global trade and investment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-polic ... e-america/

 

[ManuOtaku]

@statistical

"Once again it wasn't just dollars. Russia wasn't holding dollars and only dollars out of some magical respect for dollar as the reseve currency. They were holding foreign currency reserves OBTAINED THROUGH TRADE. All of them have been frozen with the exception of the Yuan. My understanding is their largest foreign currency holding was euros not dollars.

I do find the huge amount of concern trolling about sanctions in the last few days somewhat suspicious.
It is happening as evidence mounts that sanctions are having a catastrophic impact on the Russian economy. For once globalization is working in our favor. In turns out Russia is rather dependant on the world economy and thus if the world has the resolve to act the world has quite a bit of leverage over Russia.

"Sanctions will never do anything we shouldn't try that" Also "Sanctions may be too powerful we shouldn't do that."

Also as far as I understood, they have gold in certificate-certified paper, but not in physical form, which were also frozen out.

Many people heard the news about Russia buying gold in recent years, and took it as a preventive action from future sactions, but it was done in a matter that couldn´t escape the grip of sactions either.

A bit of bad planning mixed with a bit of overconfidence.

 

[piotrek54321]

Well, if they dont want to use SpaceX then it looks like OneWeb may have to rebrand to 0.68Web

Maybe I missed the joke, but why 68% specifically?

 

[chrontius]

Dunno how likely it is, but would love to see SpaceX just take this on as though it were just any other cargo. I realize Starlink is competition, but right now we could all use a little cooperative forward thinking.

I would take joy in SpaceX offering OneWeb a bulk discount on launches to piss in Roskosmos' cheerios.

 

[bryanlarsen]

One web is truly in a tough position. They need lots of launches at a low price per kg.

Ariane launches are way too expensive even if they would be available. And with OneWeb being owned by the UK - there ought to be very litte political interest from the EU side to help them out.

SpaceX is a direct competitor and is unlikely willing to launch any satellites for OneWeb. Same goes for BlueOrigin if they ever fly. ULA is too expensive and does not have the Rockets available.

All other (private) small launchers should be significantly too expensive as well. And Rocket Lab's Neutron rocket is still far away.

Musk has stated that he's willing to launch competitor's satellites. So it's unlikely that SpaceX would refuse to launch OnrWeb -- Shotwell has been very good at keeping Musk to his commitments. They might have to pay list price instead of getting the unlisted bulk discount, and SpaceX might not rearrange schedules to expedite the launch, but I'm confident that SpaceX would launch OneWeb if asked.

 

[50me12]

One web is truly in a tough position. They need lots of launches at a low price per kg.

Ariane launches are way too expensive even if they would be available. And with OneWeb being owned by the UK - there ought to be very litte political interest from the EU side to help them out.

SpaceX is a direct competitor and is unlikely willing to launch any satellites for OneWeb. Same goes for BlueOrigin if they ever fly. ULA is too expensive and does not have the Rockets available.

All other (private) small launchers should be significantly too expensive as well. And Rocket Lab's Neutron rocket is still far away.

Musk has stated that he's willing to launch competitor's satellites. So it's unlikely that SpaceX would refuse to launch OnrWeb -- Shotwell has been very good at keeping Musk to his commitments. They might have to pay list price instead of getting the unlisted bulk discount, and SpaceX might not rearrange schedules to expedite the launch, but I'm confident that SpaceX would launch OneWeb if asked.

Yeah it makes no sense for SpaceX to refuse. Might be hard to get scheduled but saying no and OneWeb going to their competitor and paying them ... bad business.

 

[JerryLove]

I love it, "aggressive policy of the West" - like illegally invading a sovereign nation isn't aggressive. Shit may fly in the motherland, but not in the rest of the world

American politics of the past decade have been heavily influenced by exactly this approach. Whether it's "vaccines cause autisim" or "stop the steal"... the "make big lies and repeat them" approach is surpisingly effective.

Indeed, last I heard, one living ex-president of the US was still vocally supporting Putin.

 

[csilverman]

[BULLSHIT REDACTED]

I think from a numbers perspective Musk is more or less correct here.

The primary problem with Musk is that he's a fairly prolific shitposter and that muddies the waters quite a bit.

The original poster of this tweet is fascist troll who seems to have missed the point of the tweet.

Not even going to name him, but yeah, he's one of the ones on here whose stuff I typically downvote without even reading it.

In this particular case, his two-second take was likely "Sleepy Joe got pwned by the excellent Mr. Elon Musk" and he just shared it without giving it a second thought.

 

[arcite]

This is what economic suicide looks like.

https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/1499 ... bave1pjntQ

 

[mhalpern]

A lot of these issues could be ameliorated greatly by Blue Origin solving its production issues with BE-4. That would bring Vulcan into play, and with engines, perhaps even New Glenn.

Tory Bruno of ULA seems publicly optimistic about his company getting their first flight copies of the engine. What he's not commented on is the second set and beyond. Given the apparent work rate of BO, it is difficult to say when that might happen.

So, yeah, that leaves OneWeb in the position of having to pay SpaceX a premium price for the foreseeable future. That's got to leave a very sour taste in the mouths of their executives.

to an extent, generally it takes about a couple years on a new rocket to get through the teething pains and support a regular cadence*. So if Vulcan was ready to do its demo flight today, it still wouldn't be able to pick up the slack for a while.


*in this case between 5-10 launches a year.

 

[Marc GP]

That probably only leaves SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket as a viable option. The problem with this, of course, is that SpaceX has its own satellite Internet network, Starlink. And while SpaceX may agree to launch a competitor's satellites, the price would not be cheap.

Would that even be legal ?, it would be a monopolistic practice if I ever saw one.

 

[fimuthorn]

OneWeb was founded to bring the world closer together, but that is hard to do when the world is falling apart

.

Eric, I'd say at this point in time, the world is fairly united.

BRICS countries which represent 48% of the world population all declined to suppor the UN resolution condemning Russia. Doesn't seem like a united world...

Actually, Brazil supported the UN resolution condemning Russia: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ ... 022-02-25/

 

[melgross]

And that is why Europe needs independent access to space.

Which they have with the Ariane family of rockets.

I think what you need to be saying is "that is why Europe needs independent and affordable access to space." OneWeb wouldn't have been launching with Roscosmos if the wait time and cost to launch on an Ariane weren't so bad.

Having access, and having useful timely access, are two different things. They have the first, but not the second, or they wouldn’t be using the Russian’s rockets at all.

SoaceX could up their launch cadence. In fact that’s what they’ve been planning to do. I don’t agree with some others that they wouldn’t want to launch these if given the opportunity. It would not just be good for their launch business, in payments for those launches. It would also be telling customers and potential customers that spaceX is capable enough to adjust its schedule to accommodate unexpected customers, with an increased cadence, when no one else can do that.

That would be an excellent reason for potential customers to consider spaceX first, unless political reasons in various countries prevents it. It just might make those political reasons seen less justified.

 

[numerobis]

Why isn't OneWeb just "agreeing" to these terms and then tell Russia to get f... err that there has been a change of plans late,r once the starts are done?
I mean, it doesn't sound as if there is any base of trust anyway, and these demands are probably a breach of contract too... soo... might as well burn the last bridges too to get these satellite into the air. It's not as if OneWeb will ask Russia for launches ever again after this.

If you break agreement with Russia, that gives them pretext to engage in a whole new round of military hostilities. Like firing rockets at all your satellites. Didn't Russia just, like 2 months ago or 3, do a "demonstration" of destroying one of their own satellites with an anti-satellite rocket?

Russia and what army is going to do that?

They demonstrated anti-satellite capability. They didn’t demonstrate that they have a large number of them.

Agreed, Russia's ability to deploy their resources / the amount they have is SERIOUSLY in question now.

What we've seen so far indicates that Russia's ability to wield their weapons has been shockingly poor. Their troops are short on food, they do amphibious landings 40km from their target seemingly out of fear of any kind of confrontation... Vehicles running out of food, convoys operating alone without support ... LOTS of old equipment. No air superiority.

There's plenty of reason to doubt Russia's capabilities of all kinds outside massing large numbers of hungry / demoralized conscripts.

Communicating in the clear (no encryption or frequency hopping). Unable to secure air dominance after a week. Leaving logistical convoys unsecured. Has used a relatively small number of long range precision missiles (don't have them? don't work? can't afford more?)

Outside of brutal war crime level tactics and nuclear weapons Russia is turning out to be a paper bear.

Honestly I’m disappointed that Ukraine hasn’t enlisted the Ram Ranchers to help with communication jamming.

 

[Statistical]

That probably only leaves SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket as a viable option. The problem with this, of course, is that SpaceX has its own satellite Internet network, Starlink. And while SpaceX may agree to launch a competitor's satellites, the price would not be cheap.

Would that even be legal ?, it would be a monopolistic practice if I ever saw one.

Eventually I think SpaceX will be subject to anti-monopoly provisions. One option would be for them to spin Starlink off and operate it at arms distance. Paying a rate per launch no better or worse than any other hypothetical competitor with the same requirements and cadence would get.

I would point out due to its size and the fact that volume discounts exist Starlink likely would be the lowest priced customer of SpaceX even if independent and priced fairly at least until someone else starts operating on the same scale.

 

[quamquam quid loquor]

@statistical

"Once again it wasn't just dollars. Russia wasn't holding dollars and only dollars out of some magical respect for dollar as the reseve currency. They were holding foreign currency reserves OBTAINED THROUGH TRADE. All of them have been frozen with the exception of the Yuan. My understanding is their largest foreign currency holding was euros not dollars.

I do find the huge amount of concern trolling about sanctions in the last few days somewhat suspicious.
It is happening as evidence mounts that sanctions are having a catastrophic impact on the Russian economy. For once globalization is working in our favor. In turns out Russia is rather dependant on the world economy and thus if the world has the resolve to act the world has quite a bit of leverage over Russia.

"Sanctions will never do anything we shouldn't try that" Also "Sanctions may be too powerful we shouldn't do that."

Also as far as I understood, they have gold in certificate-certified paper, but not in physical form, which were also frozen out.

Many people heard the news about Russia buying gold in recent years, and took it as a preventive action from future sactions, but it was done in a matter that couldn´t escape the grip of sactions either.

A bit of bad planning mixed with a bit of overconfidence.

Russia holds all its gold in Bank of Russia (central bank) vaults in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

 

[acefsw]

I love it, "aggressive policy of the West" - like illegally invading a sovereign nation isn't aggressive. Shit may fly in the motherland, but not in the rest of the world

American politics of the past decade have been heavily influenced by exactly this approach. Whether it's "vaccines cause autisim" or "stop the steal"... the "make big lies and repeat them" approach is surpisingly effective.

Indeed, last I heard, one living ex-president of the US was still vocally supporting Putin.

And yet, the majority doesn't buy into that crap. Now despite that, the scary thing is it takes maybe only 20% of a given populace for a fascist to rise to power. The die hard right in this country has been hovering at about 30% for the last few decades. So, yes, it's effective in a sense, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the majority buys into the narrative.

 

[winwaed]

Stick a fork in this turkey, it is done. Ironically, Vlad the Impaler may be doing the British government a favor, if it prevents more taxpayer money from going down this patently obvious rathole.

I agree the UK Gov seems to benefit the most. Although it was logical the launch would go ahead, the optics weren't good and it was an embarrassing. Rogozin has just made that moot.

 

[abie]

This is what economic suicide looks like.

https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/1499 ... bave1pjntQ

Translation: The launchers at Baikonur decided that without the flags of some countries, our rocket would look more beautiful.

Looks like they're taking off the flag decals from the fairing. This is so amazingly petty, it's like high school grade drama.

 

[melgross]

That probably only leaves SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket as a viable option. The problem with this, of course, is that SpaceX has its own satellite Internet network, Starlink. And while SpaceX may agree to launch a competitor's satellites, the price would not be cheap.

Would that even be legal ?, it would be a monopolistic practice if I ever saw one.

Eventually I think SpaceX will be subject to anti-monopoly provisions. One option would be for them to spin Starlink off and operate it at arms distance. Paying a rate per launch no better or worse than a hypothetical competitor would get.

I would point out due to its size and the fact that volume discounts exist Starlink likely would be the lowest priced customer of SpaceX even if independent at least until someone starts operating on the same scale.

That’s actually murky. This is complex, but there are laws here, at least, that require companies that buy their own prob]ducts to pay a market rate for them, so that they theoretically couldn’t charge themselves less than the lowest rate they charge anyone else. This would accommodate volume pricing, but it would have to be the same pricing they would charge everyone else for the same number of launches with the same amount of cargo, however that’s measured, by weight and possibly, number.

 

[McTurkey]

Russia over here giving out free lessons in how to speedrun destroying your own economy and reputation.

 

[numerobis]

Well, if they dont want to use SpaceX then it looks like OneWeb may have to rebrand to 0.68Web

Maybe I missed the joke, but why 68% specifically?

The company presently has 428 satellites in orbit, out of a planned total of 648 for its initial constellation.
Which would be 66% according to my calculator but I trust a typo can answer the discrepancy (my first calculation was 34% due to a typo, far enough off to reject, but if I’d gotten 68% I’d have not noticed the error)

 

[ab78]

OneWeb was founded to bring the world closer together, but that is hard to do when the world is falling apart

.

Eric, I'd say at this point in time, the world is fairly united.

BRICS countries which represent 48% of the world population all declined to suppor the UN resolution condemning Russia. Doesn't seem like a united world...

Yet China was widely expected to vote against the resolution, instead it abstained. China doesn't do anything by accident: that abstention was a huge signal that it's not at all happy with Russia over this. And you can see why: it shares some sympathies with Russia through its alignment in opposition to US hegemony and enjoys trading with Russia, yet in key sectors such as semiconductors or militarily usable products that use US tooling, if it continues trade with Russia it risks coming under the same sanctions. Essentially it's becoming a choice: do business with Russia or with the rest of the world, but not both.
Plus the whole debacle has cut out the bickering over defence spending within NATO and aligned a whole load of powerful blocs in opposition to an expansionist war of choice. That increase in international resolve isn't great news for China's ambitions to muscle up to Taiwan.

So while I wouldn't ever expect China to publicly condemn Russia, in private its leaders must be absolutely seething about how this is playing out. I don't expect them to lift a finger to help Putin out of this mess, and as I said, for a culture where communication is all about symbolism, that abstention was extremely meaningful.

 

[mhalpern]

That probably only leaves SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket as a viable option. The problem with this, of course, is that SpaceX has its own satellite Internet network, Starlink. And while SpaceX may agree to launch a competitor's satellites, the price would not be cheap.

Would that even be legal ?, it would be a monopolistic practice if I ever saw one.

only if it was over significantly over market value. if you say for example want to expedite the schedule due to a sudden and severe shortage in launch availability, that's a more valuable service than a normal launch. However if reports are accurate and OneWeb already paid for all their launches, then assuming they can't get a refund, even a Bulk Buy discount for replacement launches from SpaceX wouldn't be cheap, because it'd likely be $45-$50m more per launch that they have to pay, and because of how well they pack, they'd probably get about the same number of sats, maybe a couple more inside F9's fairing as they fit in Soyuz.

 

[Wickwick]

This notes seems to forget that China has some reasonable launch options.

China is a non-starter. They steal ITAR tech leaving the company who gotten stolen from subject to ITAR sanctions. Until recently at least when it came to rocket launches Russia has had a long track record of being trustworthy something China doesn't have.

Japan's launcher should be able to lift some. Hopefully they're all in high-inclination shells.

 

[DistinctivelyCanuck]

v f

This is what economic suicide looks like.

https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/1499 ... bave1pjntQ

Translation: The launchers at Baikonur decided that without the flags of some countries, our rocket would look more beautiful.

Looks like they're taking off the flag decals from the fairing. This is so amazingly petty, it's like high school grade drama.

Being pedantic; they're actually putting blank stickers over top of the flags (yeah I watched some of the video)

If the vehicle actually launches, it would be funny AF for the stickers to peel off due to aerodynamic pressure so that the flags become visible again.

Actually: it would be sufficiently Russian "shoot yourself in the foot" to launch the thing, just to dump the satellites into a crater.

 

[CraigJ ✅]

This is what economic suicide looks like.

https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/1499 ... bave1pjntQ

Translation: The launchers at Baikonur decided that without the flags of some countries, our rocket would look more beautiful.

Looks like they're taking off the flag decals from the fairing. This is so amazingly petty, it's like high school grade drama.

Love that he's set up his twitter account so only followers can reply to his tweets.

 

[MarkR_]

I mean, I'm not sure what the current UK government is willing to concede.. BJ is not known for his predictability, or his sanity for that matter.

He's basically trump with a charming accent.

As a Brit who lived through the Trump admin in the US, I strongly argue against that.

Johnson shares some of Trump's attributes, with a willingness to make ridiculous lies that is outside of the British norm. But they are not on the same scale. Johnson has not boasted about sexual assault, we have no evidence of him trying to work with foreign spies to undermine an election, nor of using taxpayer money to blackmail a foreign country for dirt. He hasn't openly mocked the disabled, expanded a campaign of child abuse to get more children in cages, responded to street protests by promising to "dominate" the protestors and encouraging violent suppression by the state. He hasn't invented and lied about hurricanes, then threatened the weather service for telling the truth. His reaction to covid was completely different. Most importantly, his rhetoric supports democratic institutions and while he has nibbled at free and fair elections, he hasn't waged war on democracy itself.

Things are on a scale, and if we escalate and misrepresent things then word inflation makes them meaningles. When everyone's a Nazi, no-one's a Nazi.


Trump is of a like with Putin, he just didn't stay in power long enough to break, twist and corrupt the systems restraining him. Johnson is not at that scale, and saying he is doesn't help IMO.

 

[acefsw]

That probably only leaves SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket as a viable option. The problem with this, of course, is that SpaceX has its own satellite Internet network, Starlink. And while SpaceX may agree to launch a competitor's satellites, the price would not be cheap.

Would that even be legal ?, it would be a monopolistic practice if I ever saw one.

Eventually I think SpaceX will be subject to anti-monopoly provisions. One option would be for them to spin Starlink off and operate it at arms distance. Paying a rate per launch no better or worse than a hypothetical competitor would get.

I would point out due to its size and the fact that volume discounts exist Starlink likely would be the lowest priced customer of SpaceX even if independent at least until someone starts operating on the same scale.

That’s actually murky. This is complex, but there are laws here, at least, that require companies that buy their own prob]ducts to pay a market rate for them, so that they theoretically couldn’t charge themselves less than the lowest rate they charge anyone else. This would accommodate volume pricing, but it would have to be the same pricing they would charge everyone else for the same number of launches with the same amount of cargo, however that’s measured, by weight and possibly, number.

I think that if OneWeb sought to contract with SpaceX for launches, SpaceX then price gouging them would draw FEC attention precisely because their Starlink system is a competitor. Plus, it would likely involve some breech of international trade agreements, laws, or etc

 

[imprezive]

Maybe electron is where they'll have to go?

If that’s their only option, OneWeb could just as well call it quits. Electron can take a mass of 300 kg to LEO, which is _just_ enough for two OneWeb satellites, and that’s at a cost of 7.5 million dollars, so 127,5 million dollars for a group of 34 which is what now should’ve been launched by Soyuz. No way that is happening.

It’s even worse. That’s 300kg to the wrong orbit and doesn’t account for needed adapter structure. Electron could launch a single OneWeb sat, maybe. Given RL production cadence it would take you 1.5yrs to get a single Soyuz worth of satellites up best case. Electron really isn’t made for megaconstellation deployment, that’s why they are building Neutron.