Elon Musk Hasn’t Forgotten About Earth Just Yet
SpaceX’s $17 billion spectrum deal gives it the firepower to offer a direct-to-device satellite service that will be hard to match.
Can you hear me now?
Photographer: Jordan Vonderhaar/BloombergIt’s tough being a SpaceX competitor no matter if you are building rockets, providing satellite internet or seeking to enter the nascent direct-to-mobile-phone industry.
Elon Musk’s space company has cracked the code on reusable rockets, driving down launch costs that rivals aren’t yet close to matching. This gives SpaceX an insurmountable advantage for launching its own satellites and building out an unrivaled low-Earth-orbit network that now stands at about 8,000 satellites and counting.
Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet company, has also proved adept at designing and producing equipment for both space and ground, winning praise from internet customers for the speed provided by its small antenna and WiFi router. The low-cost structure derived from this router-to-rocket vertical integration creates an unprecedented competitive moat.