Thread by @trengriffin

1/ Elon Musk is like a farmer driving a tractor on a straight one lane road at full speed toward his objective. He sees other farmers coming from the other direction on the same one lane road, but knows he needs to get to the end of the road by a certain time to achieve his goal.

2/ Elon can’t pull over and let the other farmer’s go past him. Too slow. So he has taken his steering wheel from his tractor and thrown it into a field so the other farmers can see what he did. He wants everyone to see he is irrevocably committed so they get out of his way.

3/ This sets up an epic competition with other satellite systems including Amazon's LEO constellation. This competition has all the elements of a great movie. A small team of people that included me set all this in motion at the WRC in 1995. This is fun! cnbc.com/2021/04/19/ama…

4/ In the early days of cellular spectrum was awarded in beauty contests. With satellites there's still a combination of first to file + beauty contest in service rules (which are very important). wsj.com/articles/elon-…

The culture becomes not just winning, but others losing.

5/ Starlink and other satellite providers seek rulings from the FCC and other regulators on issues (eg, orbital altitude; service parameters). Trial by lawyers, lobbyists and public relations results. The WRC in 2023 will be one battleground but it is repeated in each nation.

6/ Rules created by the FCC and other regulators impose requirements that the satellites be "brought into service" by a specific date and that different systems coordinate their system operation to minimize interference. Some systems get a priority of some kind and some don't.

7/ "Amazon must deploy half the low Earth orbit (LEO) constellation by July 2026 under regulatory conditions tied to its license. All the satellites have to be in place by July 2029." spacenews.com/amazon-contrac…

Starlink has deadlines for its constellation too. It is "go time."

8/ As you know, the integration tower will have large mechanical arms that will catch a returning Super Heavy booster. This technique will remove the need for landing legs on the Super Heavy and would also greatly reduce turnaround time between launches. nasaspaceflight.com/2021/04/starsh…

9/ The price Amazon paid per kilogram for Atlas rocket launches for Kuiper would be interesting to know. Waiting for a future rocket that might cost less to get started was not an option given rules about the system bring brought into service. Go big or go home.

10/ How big is big? For one aspect of bigness see the picture:

Reliable reusability is also big on the cost side of the equation.

Speed to place a constellation in orbit so it meets "in service" rules is also big.

There are almost always tradeoffs in space and wireless.

11/ "ULA list price for an Atlas 5 rocket starts at $109M. AMZN did not disclose how many satellites will fly on each Atlas 5 or which rocket configuration will launch Kuiper satellites. spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/19/ama…

Amazon vs SpaceX photo:

12/ Why just SpaceX and Amazon in the previous picture? They are the only satellite constellations targeting consumers. OneWeb, Telesat and other proposed systems target backhaul, enterprise and government customers. Kuiper and Starlink will serve enterprise and governments too.

13/ This is an explanation of how Starcraft enabled SpaceX to be awarded this NASA contract to land humans on the moon (with an eye toward landing them on Mars). Also explains why Blue Origin lost. The contrast between SpaceX and the SLS program is stark.

planetary.org/articles/why-n…

14/ "Artemis has both classic cost-plus and contracts and new fixed-price contracts for its major components, with jobs distributed around the country....the inevitable outcome for a large project depends on discretionary spending overseen by a representational political system."