Given that they have raised more than $7 billion in venture funding and are on the verge of bankruptcy, I think we can assume that their costs are higher than the price they charge. In other words, they have negative profit margins. They lose money on every launch. Kind of like how Tesla has always lost money on every Tesla vehicle sold, making up for it with regulatory credits (money given to them by other carmakers). There's a reason Elon sounds a lot like Enron.
China's Space Program News Thread
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Given that they have raised more than $7 billion in venture funding and are on the verge of bankruptcy, I think we can assume that their costs are higher than the price they charge. In other words, they have negative profit margins. They lose money on every launch. Kind of like how Tesla has always lost money on every Tesla vehicle sold, making up for it with regulatory credits (money given to them by other carmakers). There's a reason Elon sounds a lot like Enron.
I see at least 2 other companies designing rockets with 7 rocket engines.
It's probably the optimal number in terms of [engine size x number of engines] for VTVL
We do actually have approximate cost figures for the Falcon 9, and they can be highly profitable.
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New Falcon9 Block5 Launch. $62M
Then they charge customers $50M for a reused rocket launch
But the actual cost to SpaceX is currently $28M
We also have Elon Musk publicly stating a Falcon9 rocket needs roughly 2 launches to breakeven.
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SpaceX aren't going to go bankrupt.
Elon Musk already sold down $12 Billion of shares of Telsa this year.
Who are they? Chinese companies?
I would say that for VTVL number of engines is only one of the considerations that must be combined with the available throttle range of the engine. Without a good throttle range, one has to rely on more relative smaller engines to give the required lowest thrust at landing. This means that a 5 engines configuration with 1 engine in the middle can be a good design if the engine has a even lower minimum working thrust (a broader throttle range).
So I would say that 7 is the optimal number only for YF-100 based rockets in the class of CZ-5DY booster. For anything else, it is a different story.
Falcon 9 can be a good example. It is often launched with lower payload than it could in recovery mode. It would therefor be ideal to make Falcon 9 smaller. But that would mean less than 9 engines (7 perhaps), that will increase the demand on deeper throttling of Merlin engine which was not good at the beginning of its VTVL history. So 9 became the optimal number.
It is a very complicated compromise of target market sector (payload), engine capability and control method.
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Galactic Energy, i-Space and Blue Origin all have 7 engine rocket designs in development
That's just a claim though. Have auditors been through SpaceX books?
No. But if Elon Musk is lying, it is an SEC violation of some sort.
And he should know the costs off by heart anyway.
SpaceX is currently 5-10 years ahead of any other company, in terms of reusability and the lower costs it confers.
There should be enough demand for Starlink even with current Falcon9 launch costs.
Rationale below.
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Remember that Falcon 9 is only a stepping stone to SpaceShip and SuperHeavy
If it works, SpaceX launch costs will drop significantly
Currently it looks like $28M for a reusable Falcon9 for 17tonnes to LEO. That's $1647/kg. But they charge customers a lot more than that.
With a reusable SuperHeavy/Starship with 100tonnes to LEO, they should easily be able to do $20M for a reusable launch. That's $200/kg.
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For each Starlink satellite, these are the projected figures I can see.
REVENUE
Bandwidth: 20GBPs
Users supported: 400 (based on 50MBps per user)
Lifespan: 5 years
Current Charge per User: $99 per month
Total 5 year revenue: $2.4M
COST
Weight: 260kg
Satellite Cost: $250K
Launch Cost: $52K (@$200/kg with Starship)
Total Initial Cost: $0.3M
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2 things come out of this
Theoretically those Starlink prices could drop by half and still be very profitable.
If you do the calculations, it is also still profitable with current Falcon9 launch costs of $1647/kg
Now, there are a whole bunch of assumptions in all this, but you can see Starlink services with current Falcon9 launch costs are very profitable.
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And so far, Starlink has 500,000 users who have placed orders. That works out as $0.6Billion per year in revenue.
But there are many times this number of people who are willing to pay for a broadband satellite service for $99 per month.
NB. All these figures are publicly available.
I can't say anything except Blue Origin as there is not much details about the others.
Also, I updated my post to include "target payload" as another factor. The payload determines the total thrust at lift off, together with the engine thrust determines the number of engines. The reverse is also true. So the choice of 7 in Blue Origin's New Glenn is a product of its payload demand as well as BE-4's 240 MN thrust and its 65% throttle limit. The number can be anything if one of the three factors changes permit.
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