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TL;DR Yes, the numbers work out. Starlink is not intended to replace terrestrial connectivity. It is intended to provide service to everyone on the planet that can not get terrestrial connectivity, and those areas that can never get terrestrial connections, like oceangoing vessels and airplanes. But let's crunch some back of the envelope numbers.
SpaceX currently are allowed to launch 7500 Gen2 Starlink satellites. A Falcon 9 can fit 22 of them in one launch, requiring ~341 launches. The satellites have a planned lifetime of 5 years, meaning the entire constellation would have to be replaced in that time frame.
So costs then. Musk has given out $15 million as best case marginal cost for Falcon 9 back in 2020. But let's be conservative and say $25m per launch currently. That's $8525m in total for launches.
The satellites themselves are estimated to cost between $200-300k each for the original v1, but the v2 probably costs a bit more, so let's say $500k each. That adds up to $3750m for the satellites. So the totals then is $12275m over the span of 5 years, or ~$2.5 billion yearly.
The subscription cost is currently $110, but it fluctuates depending on the capacity in an area, so let's just use $100 as a simple round number. Each subscriber would bring in $1200 a year in revenue, so that means SpaceX would need ~2.1 million subscribers to cover the cost of replacing their currently allowed 7500 Gen2 satellites. It doesn't include the SpaceX operated ground stations that connect to the rest of the internet, but they're probably a smaller part of their total costs. The user terminals are now being sold at a profit. As of last month, SpaceX announced they had over 2 million subscribers, and reports from earlier this year indicated that they have passed the operational break even point for Starlink, which means my conservative numbers are much higher than the real numbers.
There's also a lot of countries where it's not available yet, and given that it's a global system, the marginal cost for connecting a new country is very low, only requiring ground stations to be built. So to conclude, yes, the numbers add up and they're in a good spot right now. Once they get Starship operational the numbers should change dramatically though, since launch costs are the main cost right now, and Starship would reduce that significantly. |