(Original title: SpaceX bets the house to become satellite internet provider)
Netease Technology News June 5 news, according to "USA Today" report, SpaceX has made plans to provide broadband Internet services from space to global consumers. The company hopes the service will become a cash cow, and its founder Elon Musk is in the race to make humans a "multiple planet species," and Jeff Bezos, who is also a billionaire and a space adventurer. (Amazon CEO) competition.
However, some industry analysts believe that the risk of doing so is also great, Musk may be the company's future bet on this move. Last month, SpaceX’s Vice President of Government Satellite Affairs, Patricia Cooper, told the U.S. Senate Committee for Commerce, Science and Communications that the company plans to launch 4,425 small satellites with the Falcon 9 rocket by 2024. Establish low-orbit satellite constellations. The plan also includes the deployment of another 7,518 satellites in lower orbits.
There are currently a number of companies planning to establish a similar satellite constellation, and SpaceX can occupy a place on the market. The company set up a satellite development company near Seattle to realize this dream. The industry in which Musk’s launch services company is located is a high-risk, high-cost industry. Experts say that while the Falcon 9 rocket has achieved some financial benefits from its successful reusability, the launch industry is not a lucrative industry. At least this industry is not enough to realize the dream of Musk building a self-sustaining civilization on Mars. This will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
If it is to realize the dream of interstellar travel, SpaceX may need an important source of income, and Besos and his launch company, Blue Origin, already have funding sources. Bezos said that his business model is to sell 1 billion US dollars of Amazon stocks every year, this week Amazon stock price exceeds 1000 US dollars. Some experts said that some of the challenges SpaceX faces such as government supervision, costs, and competitors can be overcome, but the threshold for access to the satellite broadband market is high, and actual profits may be lower than expected.
There have been a number of companies that have entered before, most notably OneWeb, which builds a manufacturing facility in Florida and plans to launch its first satellite in May 2018. SpaceX declined to comment. Since its inception in 2002, SpaceX's long-term mission has been to make humans a "multiple planet species." For Musk, this means establishing a self-supporting Martian civilization.
Chris Quilty, president of Quilty Analytics, a research and consulting firm in St. Petersburg, which focuses on the satellite and space industries, believes that satellite communications can fund Musk’s trip to Mars. "If you are in the space industry, where the revenue comes from, it is only satellite communications. Natural companies will establish business models in this area."
The latest report of the Satellite Industry Association also showed that in 2015 the global space industry revenue increased by 3% to 208 billion US dollars, of which launch services accounted for only a small part (5.4 billion US dollars). Even if Musk controls 100% of the launch industry, it is not enough to finance what he does. Reaching Mars SpaceX will undoubtedly require many billion dollars. Musk had stated that he hoped to reduce the cost of Mars travel to 200,000 U.S. dollars per person, but even so, it would cost 200 million U.S. dollars to send 1 million people to Mars.
The Wall Street Journal at the beginning of the year reported that SpaceX’s failure to launch materials to the International Space Station led to a loss in 2015. If a similar incident occurs, profits may further decline. The report said that the company’s “profit is thinâ€, which makes the need to build a lucrative satellite constellation even more urgent. The profit from launch services is very thin. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket can be reused better. Later this year, with the 27-engine Falcon heavy rocket launched for the first time at the Kennedy Space Center, the profit margin will increase further.
In addition to these, if SpaceX executives have no confidence in the potential of the satellite constellation, they will not do so. With the use of reusable rockets and its position in the low-cost launch industry, SpaceX has a significant advantage in launching broadband satellite constellations. In space-based Internet services, not only is it difficult to obtain frequency bands and deploy satellites, but it also requires the establishment of relay equipment on the ground. Providing sufficient coverage through these devices is a big task. SpaceX is to provide broadband to billions of consumers and it needs to deploy ground systems globally.
This is not a small task, and whether billions of people without Internet access can pay enough fees or problems. In addition, due to the low satellite orbits and large air resistance, satellite maintenance costs have increased. (Wood Xiulin)