Tim Farrar

I enjoy annoying billionaires...

Thoughts on the fascinating EchoStar-SpaceX deal today tmfassociates.com/blog/2025/09...

🛰️🚀 ViaSat-3 F2 is scheduled to launch in the second half of October aboard United Launch Alliance (ULA)'s Atlas V551 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and is anticipated to provide more bandwidth capacity than the entire existing fleet when it comes into service. More: https://vsat.co/4mH64eZ

Seems like a lot of pressure for everything to go right with the Starship launch (or at least to credibly declare it a success) if it's "part of a broader vision/strategy"

If the public and government are no longer willing to put up with the disruption that Starship causes to flights, the environment etc, because they believe it's a waste of time, then SpaceX won't be able to just go again

Actually it's more probable that public perceptions will sour before there's any likelihood of the money running out. And those perceptions are critical for all of Musk's ventures, eg they effect the willingness of the government help out SpaceX both financially and by bending rules

Which company claims to have a whole bunch of F9 launches planned over the next 12 months but never meets their planned schedule for satellite delivery? Maybe the #cluelesscult know?

And if "some planned launches of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rockets would potentially be pushed from the end of this year to early 2026 because of the surge of Falcon engineers working on Starship" good luck to external F9 buyers wanting launch flexibility...

Starship launches could delay Florida flights up to 2 hours, FAA says | TechCrunch SpaceX's plans to launch Starship from Florida could have implications for the state's booming airports.

The last thing that SpaceX needs is skepticism on revenue growth *plus* a public backlash to continued disruptive Starship testing that isn't showing visible signs of progress techcrunch.com/2025/08/20/s...

But that's conflating one-time lower margin contracts to build satellites with high incremental margin service revs. People have ignored the 2023 $7.4B rev total that's way lower than SpaceX suggested in Nov 2023. Let's see if the 2024 total is also disappointing when it emerges

One thing that's not so visible externally is that recent investor reports have moved satellite development (e.g. NRO) into the reported Starlink revenue total to show increased growth there & de-emphasize the rocket division (which is now projected to be ~flat with 2023)

All the objectives for the upcoming launch could be met without even matching the visible achievements in prior tests (booster catch & soft splashdown) so it almost seems like the plan is that "it's better to fail prematurely and often". But will the public agree?

SpaceX’s Expensive Starship Explosions Are Starting to Add Up Shortly after the incident, roughly 20% of the engineering group working on the company’s flagship Falcon 9 program were reassigned for six months to Starship, a reusable rocket Musk hopes will someda...

This is fascinating, especially noting reduction in SpaceX valuation from $500B whisper number earlier this year. I don't think its wise to do more V2 Starships that blow up as a "learning opportunity" if that hurts public perceptions of progress finance.yahoo.com/news/spacex-...

(One slight editing error in that my discussion of streaming video from Netflix going over Starlink was used to describe satellite TV)

Satellites - Freakonomics Satellites - Freakonomics

A Freakonomics podcast on the economics of satellite, featuring Rachel Jewett and me freakonomics.com/podcast/sate...

My assumption is the 2024 revenue was held back for a future story. But the stuff about not paying tax doesn't consider the differences between pre and post 2017 losses (those later ones don't allow corporations to pay zero tax)

Overall I find it a very disappointing piece. There's a story to be told about revenue growth being below the company's forecasts (like the WSJ did) and instead it's all about tax losses

bsky.app/profile/tmfa...

SpaceX Eyes $15 Billion in 2024 Sales on Starlink Strength SpaceX is on track to book revenues of about $9 billion this year across its rocket launch and Starlink businesses, according to people familiar with the matter, with sales projected to rise to around...

The one concrete piece of information on total revs is a very low $7.4B in 2023 when as late as Nov 2023 "sources" in the company were pushing the narrative that revs would be closer to $9B than the original $8B target due to "Starlink strength" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Actually says Starlink was more than half of $7.4B in 2023 then more than doubled to roughly $8B in 2024. That's a tight bracket around ~$3.8B. What's more surprising is the article didn't state the total rev for SpaceX in 2024 when they must have that

Analysis: Is AST SpaceMobile launch schedule a pipedream? AST SpaceMobile has an aggressive schedule for the launch of its Block2 Bluebird LEO satellites but there could be a hitch in its plans.

Analysis: Is AST SpaceMobile launch schedule a pipedream?
www.mobileworldlive.com/ast-spacemob...

Striking developments in the Ligado bankruptcy case today, as a dispute breaks out between Viasat and AST over whether AST will be able to try and compete with Viasat in L-band outside the US. My new blog post tmfassociates.com/blog/2025/08...

However, its worth noting since the company repeatedly stated that the launches would be "every 45 to 60 days" that 45 days x 13 launches from the date of the call takes us to mid-March 2027

The company's current forecast now aligns with what I suggested was the best case launch schedule in my D2D report two weeks ago tmfassociates.com/blog/wp-cont...

Let me know if it's fixed now

The company has given us their schedule for launches through the end of 2026, at best that's another ~41 satellites (45-60 includes the BB1s)

Here's my blog post with a write-up of the delays that $ASTS has admitted to today and the planned schedule that they have now (though there should be zero confidence in them actually meeting this) tmfassociates.com/blog/2025/08...

He's now continuing to talk nonsense about 10,000 cells per sat w/the new ASIC when he meant 10GHz of processing capacity. A real Q from Deutsche Bank about launches, testing & what the intermittent service looks like & the answer is total gibberish. And he goes back to the 6-8 sats on each launch

This answer from Abel on sat manufacturing is utter BS, he's saying there will be 6-8 satellites per launch, when that's not possible without New Glenn and there are no NG launches available before next summer

The presentation (slide 7) also makes it clear that the 8 sets of microns completed are the number needed for 4 launches, i.e. FM1 standalone, FM2 standalone, then 3 per F9 as I predicted. So 5 launches is only 11 more sats by end 2026Q1 (if it happens)