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Pierre Lionnet
6,583 posts
Pierre Lionnet
@LionnetPierre
Space economist (one of the very few) - Research & Managing Director at Eurospace - views are mine not Eurospace
- I've visited a lot of satellite integrators, and none looked like this.Starlink satellites are designed, built, launched and operated from the United States to provide connectivity anywhere on the planet
00:00 - I think that I need to discuss launch costs (again), because I keep reading the same bullshit such as: "Over the past decade, launch costs have been lowered by an order of magnitude, thus laying the foundation for the emergence of a new, expansive space economy." 1/9
- The saga of "reducing launch costs" continues, with Falcon Heavy here priced at 257M$. Thats more than twice the listed price of 97M$, and in the same ballpark of USA legacy high energy launchers.NASA announced that it has picked the Falcon Heavy to loft Dragonfly, a $3.35B mission that will investigate the life-hosting potential of Saturn's huge moon Titan. The Dragonfly contract is a firm, fixed-price deal with a value of nearly $257M. space.com/space-explorat…
- We have modelized the economic equation of @SpaceX as a launch service provider (leaving aside Dragon, Starship and Starlink) with a view to uncover its cost and profit drivers. The idea was to use Falcon 9 as a benchmark for testing the economics of launcher Reusability. 1/18
- And this guy writes extensively about tech…Can any space nerds help me understand how the Blue Origin capsule came back down without any re-entry burns? Was this a trajectory thing or some kind of superior material used? Falcon crew capsule for comparison
- European space startups have grown to hire 10000 people. They represent 16% of european space industry workforce. Most are underfunded, only a handful have a mature product, I surmise none has a positive bottom line. The future can be brutal unless investors add to the pot.European startup space co's 'last supper': @esa telecom director warns: There's not enough funding to support all of you. Merge & strike partnerships or face going out of business. #SmallSatEurope @defis_eu. spaceintelreport.com/europes-last-s…
- I was sifting through @VirginOrbit investor deck (because I am a masochist obviously) and I came across the 25B$ market projection for "Small-Satellite launch" by 2030. The reference source is "Prophesy Market Insights". So I looked it up on Google. 1/ virginorbit.com/wp-content/upl…
- What's going on at @RocketLab? Apart from a seemingly toxic work environment, two recently published financial reports give us a hint of @RocketLab economics and how it is losing money consistently on every launch, despite NZ government financial support. A thread. 1/14
- @MorganStanley recently issued a report that puts the value of #SpaceX at $100B. Let me start by saying that @MorganStanley disclaims that it may have "conflicts of interests" affecting its "objectivity". It is my opinion that it also affects @MorganStanley's common sense. 1/
- I thought I was the only using the burger analogy to explain space economics (scientificamerican.com/article/spacex…), well no: this report finds that a spaceport has an economic impact comparable to a couple of fast food restaurants. 1/
- How big is 'the space economy'? Confronted with endless discussions I decided to publish a paper on linkedin to discuss the matter, from an economist perspective. Please read the full paper. The highlights are provided in the thread below. 1/7 linkedin.com/posts/eurospac…
- “Northrop was uncertain that the commercial market existed beyond guaranteed contracts to house NASA astronauts, and this is likely what led to its decision to drop a bid.” I share this view. 1/Northrop is almost certainly out as one of four potential providers of commercial space station services for NASA. arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/…
