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by shaklee3 2545 days ago
See the cost of phased array, which Leo needs to work. They're significantly more expensive than standard parabolic dishes, and there's no evidence SpaceX has changed that.
1 comments

Based on Elon's standard playbook, I'm guessing he's going to try to bring down unit economics with much larger scale in phased array manufacturing than we've seen in the past. If he didn't think he could do this, I don't think they'd be launching Starlink.

That said, I know almost nothing about phased arrays, so I don't know if it's expensive due to some fundamental reason, or if it's partly because it's been a niche/low volume device before now.

Right, Elon needs that to come down to work. The satellite part is very cool and all, but the ground station cost is where the uncertainty is.