Jim,
They're not beating their competition by years. TeleSat launched their
first megaconstellation demo sat last month, OneWeb will be launching 10
more flight-like sats by this summer. These demosats that SpaceX is
launching are almost certainly much simpler, smaller versions of what
they'll eventually build. Quite important demos that will be helpful for
accelerating the design of the rest of their fleet, but they're a long way
from having a final flight design let alone a factory to churn these out.
If we're going by who'll be first to orbit their megaconstellation, I think
it's pretty clearly OneWeb's lead to blow. They're doing a less capable
bent-pipe approach that won't be as useful as SpaceX's, but barring some
huge setback and several miracles, they'll have a good chance of having
their whole first generation constellation orbited before SpaceX is even
starting to launch their full satellites.
I still think StarLink is a great idea for SpaceX, and if OneWeb's gen 2
version isn't dramatically better, SpaceX is going to eat their lunch.
They're just not "beating their competition by years" when it comes to
their megaconstellation.
~Jon
On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 9:10 PM, James Fackert <jimfackert@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, one way to assure you have customers for your new launch systems is
to be your own best customer.
40 billion dollar internet com business, serving you own cars and everyone
else, launched in a couple of fh launches and beating the competition by
years.
Damn. That will close your financial case.
jim fackert