This is so cool, but I did not see a key piece of info in the article: does the ongoing operation of this mission fall under NASA's science budget and therefore at risk of cuts and defunding under Trump [1]?
Sure, the launch will go through, but SpaceX doesn't see any recurring revenue from later operations, and I wouldn't put it past the current administration to cut NASA's budget such that continuing operations are affected.
I'm not sure how to make out of comments like this. Is SpaceX actually launching customer payloads under $50m or whatever? Because, unless they are, it won't be long before JAXA/MHI starts selling H3 at half the cost of H-IIA, which is already like 15t to LEO for $67m at 150 JPY/USD, which leaves F9 reusable barely competitive in price. I don't know what India or China charge for foreign customers, but is it really reasonable to expect worse deal than Mitsubishi from them? ...
Superheavy-Starship reusable launches at F9 price would completely destroy everything in space space, but so far the only things it had disrupted are itself and airline services under its flightpath. And even F9 is starting to show increasingly clear signs of repetitive "old space" scrubs as NASA gets more disrupted.
Is that really a meaningful statement that stands, or it that just hand wavy glance away one now?
I'm sorry no, you should spend some time actually understanding the industry.
JAXA builds a tiny amount of rockets, almost exclusively for their own use. They have never been a significant player and its very unlikely that will change anytime soon.
Its pure fantasy to suggest otherwise. And even if they could reliably hit these prices at commercial launch scale, Falcon 9 could easily lower their prices if real competitors actually existed.
If H3 was such a dynamic thread as you suggest, why did Amazon not buy 100s of launches from them. They bought launches from every SpaceX competitor, but not Japan.
> I don't know what India or China charge for foreign customers, but is it really reasonable to expect worse deal than Mitsubishi from them? ...
China isn't really relevant. Western stuff is just not going to fly from China.
India used to do more commercial stuff, but SpaceX Rideshare is far, far, far more popular.
The reality is, India large rockets, like Japan, is mostly build for their own program, they don't really have that much access capability.
> Is that really a meaningful statement that stands, or it that just hand wavy glance away one now?
The $67m figure is the same one I'm finding for Falcon 9 (and it can carry loads 40% heavier). That made me think they were matching each other on price to stay competitive in the market and that seems correct as the internal costs I'm seeing for SpaceX Falcon 9 launches are estimated around $15mil, meaning they have a large margin from which to come down from.
> it won't be long before JAXA/MHI starts selling H3 at half the cost of H-IIA
SpaceX doesn't stand still. It's weird to think that in several years SpaceX will be in the same place (relying on Falcon 9) yet JAXA, etc will have improved dramatically.
So are they launching F9 at $67m? Or do you merely expect SpaceX to eventually price match? Not that MHI is selling a lot of slots, but still. Quoted payload figures is also within ballparks.
They are actually doing launches as low as $62 million (as of 2024). They also have enormous margin to lower this cost because even the upper-bound estimate by industry analysts on the Falcon 9 launch cost for SpaceX is only $28 million.
Costs are largely meaningless when talking about global situation and other nations and their strategic interests. Europe will move fully to ESA for anything actually important, China and India have their own stuff too.
Private satellites, sure why not if companies are OK with risking of getting their payload removed at last minute because somebody again bruised musk's ego.
Business can't be done in an environment with zero trust, doesn't matter how much better the offer looks on paper. That trust with spacex is gone for good.
Costs are never meaningless when you're talking about technical projects that cost billions of dollars.
> trust with spacex is gone for good.
Sorry to pop your bubble, but they launched 134 rockets with payloads last year and they all made it to their orbits successfully except for one of their own starlink payloads. This is more than 90% of all launches that occurred last year.
Trump created the Space Force so he will presumably want some amount of funding for rockets and what not. If Space Force fails it would make him look bad after all.
Trump is the one who actually decided to go through with the creation of a distinct branch rather than having it as a command. I think it is fair to say he created it.
There are all sorts of politicians and military members who advocate for a distinct Cyber branch of the military instead of Cyber Command. If a politician ends up doing that, then he should get credit for creating it even though it has been a long time coming.
> distinct Cyber branch of the military instead of Cyber Command
It's not 'instead', it's adding a cyber branch to a different org chart. There are two major org charts in the US military:
The services, such as Army, Navy, Space Force, etc., which are generally defined by domain (land, sea, orbit) and whose role is to recruit, organize, train, and equip forces - to prepare them, but not to deploy or command them in operations.
The combatant commands, which are defined by geography - such as Africa Command, Indo-Pacific Command - and sometimes by geography-independent domains, such as as Space Command or Cyber Command. The combatant commands deploy the resources provided by the services in various combinations. Modern conflicts generally require resources from multiple services/domains working jointly.
It makes some sense - you want domain experts to train and equip them for their domain, then you must necessarily deploy them jointly. Who should organize, train, and equip sea-born forces? Probably you want the Navy to do that, not the Army. Who should organize, train, and equip electronic domain forces (I hate the term 'cyber')? Do you want your IT organization organized, trained, and equipped (think of the importance of each step) by the US Marine Corps, or maybe by some actual researchers, engineers, and experienced managers?
Yep, it looks like it will be cut and closed, which is truly unfortunate. It’s disappointing to see that science nor innovation are not a priority for this administration. And this doge cutting of funding or even shutting down important projects will have long-term consequences, impacting research, education, and technological advancements that benefit everyone.