Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OneWeb files for bankruptcy

oneweb.world

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 127 posts

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#71

Post by erwinh »

tobiastobias wrote: post #68
erwinh wrote: post #39

So this will be the final OneWeb constellation: https://space-search.io/?search=OneWeb (shamelessly plugging my own website here) Such a shame about OneWeb though, met some of them at a conference in Spain just a month ago, where the elephant in the room was StarLink already.

How cool! I have never seen space/satellites so intuitively explained. 2 ideas: Can you include spaceships or the ISS? As well it would be cool to see the satellites actually flying in time-lapse. Keep up the good work - thanks for sharing :-)

Thanks! Time-lapse & animation is on the to-do list :) Depends a little bit on the classifications of the spaceships but these are included in the data. I'm still working on (even) more intuitive labeling & categorisation systems but for example ISS can currently be found by the cospar ID for the first element launched: https://space-search.io/?search=cospar%2098067A

Ease of use is my primary focus so feels good to hear that it's recognised and appreciated!

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#72

Post by Thlom »

RivieraKid wrote: post #19
jessriedel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Iridium recently launched an entire new generation of satellites to replace their old one, and it is expected to be profitable. Likewise, lots of people expect SpaceX to make a killing on Starlink. There were good reasons to be skeptical of OneWeb, but "consumer satellite communication companies have gone bankrupt before" is not one of them.

> 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…

I think Elon has been talking about floating ground stations. Not sure if that is even viable. My best guess is that ships, at least ocean going ships, will stay with GEO operators for the time being.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#73

Post by rossmohax »

erwinh wrote: post #39

So this will be the final OneWeb constellation: https://space-search.io/?search=OneWeb (shamelessly plugging my own website here) Such a shame about OneWeb though, met some of them at a conference in Spain just a month ago, where the elephant in the room was StarLink already.

How do they deploy evenly spaced sattelites on the same orbit?

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#74

Post by erwinh »

rossmohax wrote: post #73
erwinh wrote: post #39

So this will be the final OneWeb constellation: https://space-search.io/?search=OneWeb (shamelessly plugging my own website here) Such a shame about OneWeb though, met some of them at a conference in Spain just a month ago, where the elephant in the room was StarLink already.

How do they deploy evenly spaced sattelites on the same orbit?

You can launch them all at once on a sort of dispenser system. Then after they are separated they are on the exact same orbit. By increasing or decreasing that orbit height by just a tiny bit they will speed up or down and start to disperse. Over multiple days/weeks they will start to disperse across that orbit. Once they are all spaced to the position where they want them they move up/down again to the exact orbit to maintain position. Maybe later in the year I'll make an animation about it, because initially it is a bit counter intuitive but once you get it it makes a lot of sense :)

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#75

Post by cs702 »

I've met some of the senior executives at OneWeb, and think highly of them.

My understanding is that from day one they were under pressure from Softbank and other backers to spend the initial capital aggressively -- to secure spectrum as quickly as possible, build out ground stations as quickly as possible, build out global operations as quickly as possible, and start launching satellites as quickly as possible -- with the implicit assumption that there would be additional capital available to get the company to launch.

The team, to its credit, accomplished pretty much everything they set out to do on an accelerated schedule, but then, when they needed additional capital to finish the build-out and launch... the additional capital they had been counting on failed to materialize on reasonable terms.

Many people working at OneWeb surely feel shortchanged.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#76

Post by Robotbeat »

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.

ALL companies who attempted to launch massive satellite constellations ran out of money, often pushed by financial markets around the dotcom bubble bursting.

Many of them ended up being salvaged afterward and many are still operating today (some at a profit) after going through bankruptcy: ORBCOMM, Iridium, Globalstar. All three have launched second generation satellite constellations. Bankruptcy doesn't have to mean society loses their value.

I'm as big of a SpaceX fan as anyone, but I hope we manage to salvage OneWeb out of bankruptcy and get at least the minimal constellation up somehow. Maybe they'll be able to switch to cheaper reusable launch providers like SpaceX or New Glenn as part of the bankruptcy.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#77

Post by reportingsjr »

milankragujevic wrote: post #63
martinald wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't work like that. Each starlink satellite has capacity of 20gig/sec. Assume that only 1 or 2 of the sats will be over a major metro area at any one time - that's 40gig/sec total capacity. That's only ~5,000 HD netflix streams at once (even less for 4K). It will soon become totally overloaded. A city like NYC probably has home/office bandwidth use of 40gig/sec per a few city blocks, nevermind the whole metro are…

Yes, but cities have FTTH, rural areas have.. often times nothing that approaches >5 Mbps.

This will always be the case, unless rural subsidies are increased even more drastically (not really a good thing). Infrastructure in cities is far cheaper than rural areas, so this is kind of a cat and mouse game for rural areas where internet will be x times slower than in cities.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#78

Post by Robotbeat »

m4rtink wrote: post #54
kilroy123 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I always thought they were insane not utilizing SpaceX for launching and bringing down costs. Iridium used SpaceX very successfully to get their entire new constellation up.

IIRC from an article that I read, there has been some personal antipathy between one of the OneWeb founders and SpaceX/Elon, that made them avoid SpaceX & go for much more expensive & less flexible "conventional" launch providers.

SpaceX and OneWeb were actually once partners. OneWeb didn't like SpaceX's more ambitious plans (or SpaceX wasn't satisfied with OneWeb's less ambitious plans), so they split.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#79

Post by gpm »

InTheArena wrote: post #60
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.

It’s worth noting that when the started, there was not reusable rockets, and Tesla was not in the satellite business.

It looks like Oneweb first received funding in January 2015. It looks like they had started working on the idea in 2014. (Per Wikipedia)

SpaceX's first propulsive landing attempt was September 2013, by the end of 2014 they had twice succeeded at controlled descents over the ocean. Their first landing on a solid surface (i.e. actual recovery of the booster) was late 2015.

So yes, there weren't yet reusable rockets, but the writing was very clearly on the wall.

Tesla still isn't in the satellite business unless you count the roadster that SpaceX launched, Starlink is part of SpaceX. It was announced at roughly the same time as Oneweb receiving funding (January 2015). My understanding is that Oneweb and SpaceX had been in talks that broke down, so they knew it was coming.

Re: OneWeb files for bankruptcy

#80

Post by numpad0 »

rossmohax wrote: post #73
erwinh wrote: post #39

So this will be the final OneWeb constellation: https://space-search.io/?search=OneWeb (shamelessly plugging my own website here) Such a shame about OneWeb though, met some of them at a conference in Spain just a month ago, where the elephant in the room was StarLink already.

How do they deploy evenly spaced sattelites on the same orbit?

Easy. Just fly the upper stage slightly higher than wanted and shoot one at a time into the final orbit desired distance apart.

(Payloads’ own engines works fine though)

Post reply on HN