OneWeb files for bankruptcy • Hacker News Board

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#41

Post by phkahler » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

shantara wrote: post #16

I don't think it's exactly fair of them to blame "financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19" for their bankruptcy. The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. And let's be frank, an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail.

>> The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations.

As Elon recently said, they have ALL gone under. The goal of Starlink is to not go bankrupt. Well, it's actually to fund the Mars mission, but a first step is to not go bankrupt like everyone else did.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#42

Post by davisr » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

shantara wrote: post #16

I don't think it's exactly fair of them to blame "financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19" for their bankruptcy. The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. And let's be frank, an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail.

[flagged]

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#43

Post by lmm » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:21 PM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #40

tyingq wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a niche where they can survive? Iridium (IRDM) is still afloat, though with a lot more coverage and a solid niche.

Iridium launched a complete, working constellation before going bankrupt.

And came very close to deorbiting it all in the bankruptcy.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#44

Post by z3t4 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #30

blackhaz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what happens with the satellites. Are they just expected to decay?

I’m almost positive they have the means to De orbit them if they decide to.

Would be cool if they would let radio amateurs use them, rather then destroying. Could probably find many use cases, if not for learning and experimentation. Maybe use if for Internet peering.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#45

Post by gpm » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

shantara wrote: post #21

RivieraKid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lots of people expect SpaceX to make a killing on Starlink What lots of people expect is kind of irrelevant... OneWeb going bankrupt suggests that profit margins will be low at best, negative at worst. Cheaper launch cost is not enough to change the business from to non-viable to hugely profitable. Who will be the customers of Starlink? Internet is a commodity for the average person, you can't make money in that ma…

>OneWeb going bankrupt suggests that profit margins will be low at best, negative at worst It's too early to speculate about profit margins before the company has finished launching its constellation and started providing a commercial service.

It's the exact right time time to speculate about profit margins, if you don't have some idea of what their expected profit margins are you don't have any idea about whether or not you should invest in this endeavor.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#46

Post by tialaramex » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:32 PM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #25

RivieraKid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lots of people expect SpaceX to make a killing on Starlink What lots of people expect is kind of irrelevant... OneWeb going bankrupt suggests that profit margins will be low at best, negative at worst. Cheaper launch cost is not enough to change the business from to non-viable to hugely profitable. Who will be the customers of Starlink? Internet is a commodity for the average person, you can't make money in that ma…

> Internet is a commodity for the average person, you can't make money in that market. This assumes that razor thin margins are bad, which is usually a safe assumption but in the case of Starlink, I say it's not open minded enough. To boot Starlink online requires a minimum cost for service area (sats), but once you've got that area booted, onboarding new customers is trivial (vs laying fiber, cable, digging holes).…

How about if the offer was $1000 plus $10 per Mb/s and the maximum is 10Mbps ?

You would switch because you've imagined this service is magically cheaper and better, but now I say it'll be expensive and worse are you still enthusiastic?

Providing network service is a utility, and so yes razor thin margins are typical and that's too bad. It does make very high capital investment (such as launching huge numbers of satellites every few years) difficult to stomach though.

These projects (whatever Musk says about them when hyping his company) deliver expensive network access to places where it's otherwise not practical to offer service at all. They aren't going head-to-head with Comcast, or even with AOL, they're competing with "Physically take a day's / week's work to the A site where they have network access".

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#47

Post by nickik » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

davisr wrote: post #42

shantara wrote: post #16

I don't think it's exactly fair of them to blame "financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19" for their bankruptcy. The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. And let's be frank, an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail.

[flagged]

This is so incredibly wrong that it blows my mind.

SpaceX within 10 years make launch prices 5-10x cheaper, maybe that deserves them having a great position in the market for a while. This is exactly prove that in a capitalist system major gains in productivity can happen even to high capital industries. If anything this is just another example of capitalist greatness, an immigrant who literally sleeped in his office and showered at the gym 20 years ago is transforming Spaceflight.

People are so incredibly short sighted, a successful company, 4 years after people stop saying 'they will go bankrupt soon' its 'omg this company will literally control the WHOLE EARTH. The predictions of Karl Marx were correct, capital is inherently centralizing is correct, here comes SpaceX like the harbinger of materialism inherent truth.'

We have been threw this cycle so many times and it never makes much sense, but there never seem to be a shortage of people that will talk about anti-trust and breaking up any company that is successful. Go and to some historical research on Anti-Trust, if anything it was a political tool the Progressive Party to go after successful business.

And by absolutely no definition what so ever is SpaceX a monopoly in literally anything.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#48

Post by encom » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

MegaDeKay wrote: post #28

More information at this link from the Financial Times. There are only a few dozen people left working their now. https://amp-ft-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.ft.com/content...

That link is an abomination while also being paywalled. The proper link is this:

https://www.ft.com/content/8695c459-effd-4b54-8d96-69d8e614f...

...but also paywalled. This one is not:

https://archive.ph/OynEo

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#49

Post by bryanlarsen » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

erwinh wrote: post #37

blackhaz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what happens with the satellites. Are they just expected to decay?

The FT article I think claims that after the bankruptcy there will remain a small team to maintain them for now. Don't know if the plan is to de-orbit them, maybe there are still some stakeholders interested in running some experiments on them...

It's Chapter 11 which means that they hope to maintain OneWeb as a viable business.

Only if they convert to Chapter 7 would it mean they've given up on the business completely.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#50

Post by nickik » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

chtitux wrote: post #20

Ariane 6 first flight was planned to bring OneWeb satellites in space. If they can't launch them, I wonder what will be the payload of the first Ariane 6.

To be honest I really can't see what exactly the Ariane 6 does better then Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy. I can not see how it has any chance in a commercial market, they will have to get government launches, but there are not enough.

Ariane 6 was a response to Falcon 9 first generation, and they designed it to compete with a Falcon 9 from 4 years ago, Falcon 9 is a different beast now.

Even launching 2 huge satellites is not gone work because there are fewer of those launches, and Falcon Heavy is getting a bigger fairing that could do that too.