Even if a significant portion of SpaceX’s revenue comes from Starlink, deploying the constellation still requires launches, and plenty of them. The article doesn’t touch on it, but I believe Starlink profits are bankrolling a portion of Starship development.

Is McDonalds a hamburger company or a french fry company?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Last week, during our inaugural Ars Live event, Quilty Space director of research Caleb Henry joined Ars space editor Eric Berger for a discussion of SpaceX’s Starlink and other satellite internet systems.

We discussed Starlink’s rapid road to profitability—it took just five years from the first launch of operational satellites—and the future of the technology.

One of the keys to Starlink’s success is its vertical integration as a core business at SpaceX, which operates the world’s only reusable rocket, the Falcon 9.

“At one point, SpaceX had publicly said that it was $28 million,” Henry said of the company’s target for a Falcon 9 launch cost.

But it is clear today that a significant portion of the company’s revenue, if not a majority, comes from its Starlink satellite internet business.

"I think it’s interesting that Stéphane Israël from Arianespace—in the early days, like 2015, 2016 when Starlink was just announced—would try to court customers and say, ‘Do you want to fund your competitor?’

The original article contains 376 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 57%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!