A couple more things about SpaceX. First, Elon made an interesting observation about 2+ years ago. He said that there was more margin in building satellites than in rocket lift. He made that comment just before they started building Starlink satellites. So, like any successful business, he is now going upstream and is starting to build satellites for other customers. SpaceX just inked a US defense contract to build four satellites. I expect them to get into building a variety of other contracts for others at some point as well (eg. planetary observation for weather, space observation, etc.)
Second, something that I haven't seen talked about, but I expect Starlink will start eating away at traditional satellite telecom's business. A Starlink terminal can do more than just carry public Internet packets. Unless they've really missed a trick, they can also carry dedicated (private) telecom links, which is exactly what traditional geostationary satellite does. It is a bit more complicated than that because you need good access to specific ground link locations for delay sensitive applications, like a TV broadcast studio. But over time, Starlink will likely put out of business a lot of telecom satellite companies. Which has historically been a large part of SpaceX's commercial customers. Fun times.
Second, something that I haven't seen talked about, but I expect Starlink will start eating away at traditional satellite telecom's business. A Starlink terminal can do more than just carry public Internet packets. Unless they've really missed a trick, they can also carry dedicated (private) telecom links, which is exactly what traditional geostationary satellite does. It is a bit more complicated than that because you need good access to specific ground link locations for delay sensitive applications, like a TV broadcast studio. But over time, Starlink will likely put out of business a lot of telecom satellite companies. Which has historically been a large part of SpaceX's commercial customers. Fun times.
