Tim Farrar @TMFAssociates Twitter profile

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Tim Farrar

2 months

My new 80+ page report on the In-Flight Connectivity market is now available. One early review: "This report is stunningly good. It makes my head hurt."

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Quick summary of TMUS/SpaceX announcement: proposed text/voice service is copycat of ASTS plan, i.e. using cellular spectrum. FCC has dithered for over 2 years about whether to permit that non-conforming use, to date all we have is an experimental authorization for 1 sat (1/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

3 years

Starlink being used for military applications in Ukraine (by the ground team not on the drone itself)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

3 years

Admitting that Starlink V1 will never make a profit or have capacity to serve millions of users is quite a statement. Saying V2 is only feasible with Starship contradicts their own August submission to the FCC (and arguments since) which had two alternative launch strategies

Space Explored

@space_explored

3 years

Elon Musk says SpaceX could face 'genuine risk of bankruptcy' from Starship engine production by @derekiswise

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

Wow, FCC turns down SpaceX's RDOF request: "the Auction Application System will not allow an applicant that intends to use any form of satellite technology, whether GEO, HEO, MEO or LEO, to select the Gigabit performance tier or to select low latency"

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Here’s a puzzle: if Starlink has 25K terminals in Ukraine, how will it cost them over $20M to support these terminals for the next 3 months? If they gave away service completely free of charge, then that would be a cost of more than $250 per terminal per month

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

Nice wildlife refuge you had there...

CosmicLouis🪐

@louisssdev

1 year

the stage 0 damage must be crazy literally concrete hail

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 years

My new blog post on why SpaceX desperately needs a government bailout

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

8 months

Coincidence?

Lawrence McDonald

@Convertbond

8 months

AMAZON'S BEZOS SELLS AT LEAST $2.04B WORTH OF SHARES *the guy is a hall of fame seller, dumping his shares at the top.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

Starlink continues to experience satellite propulsion failures at an astonishingly high rate, with 3 more lost at operational altitude between May 15 and June 23. Compare and

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

But given how many half-formed concepts were put forward, the only possible conclusion is that this was designed to pre-empt next week's Apple announcement of their own free messaging service with Globalstar. That should begin as soon as the new phone is released (4/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

3 years

It’s bizarre people believe “SpaceX is making money” when it barely got to EBITDA breakeven at peak of its paid launches by including deposits. Since then paid launches have declined sharply and the business is consuming over $2B of cash per year for Starship/Starlink development

Balaji

@balajis

3 years

@wolfejosh @APompliano To my knowledge, SpaceX is making money. Tesla is also posting consistently good numbers recently. But the thing is: the cars work, the rockets land. Even if it *was* $6B cumulative loss forever (and my bet is against that), that’s cheap for the manifest technological progress.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

SpaceX had to cherry pick so much to find a couple of Speedtests to present to the @FCC supporting its assertion of 100Mbps data rates, that it was forced to show two copies of the same result!

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

6 months

It feels like some people haven’t yet got past the first stage of grief

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

Even Bridenstine has become outspoken…

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

Ordering 1M terminals at $2400 each and selling them at $499 poses one overarching question for other satellite companies: Can SpaceX stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent?

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

9 days

@AirlineFlyer I was told that part of the reason this didn’t get announced last week was that Air France was still working on their comms strategy to deal with the inevitable “but Musk” questions

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

So Starlink’s revenues from Ukraine will easily exceed $100M this year and Elon’s claim of making losses is just completely made up. And now he wants the DoD to pay hundreds of millions more

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Well this is great news for SpaceX but comprehensively screws AST: specifically excludes FirstNet & notes "unique challenges" in 800MHz (which are BW-3 bands), requires full CONUS license, and is limited to mods to existing NGSO licenses, which AST hasn't yet been granted

Ryan Thompson

@JRyanThomp

2 years

The draft @FCC notice of proposed rulemaking on the use of terrestrial spectrum for direct-to-handset connectivity is out: . Summary screencapped. Top item for the Commission's Open Meeting on 3/16. These items often change -- sometimes materially --

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

Alternate headline: SpaceX investors woke up to some pretty terrible news, as lack of demand forces Starlink to reduce pricing by 20%-30% in a variety of countries

Starlink Insider

@starlinkinsider

1 year

European customers (like me) woke up to some pretty awesome news: Starlink reduced its pricing by 20%-30% in a variety of countries.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

23 days

AT&T starting to play down expectations: years & a dozen plus launches away from commercial service, no idea about business model (ie if it’s possible to charge extra), mostly texting & calling, and seamless handoff is a purely aspirational “best case…eventually”

PCMag

@PCMag

23 days

AT&T's Head of Network Chris Sambar talks about the carrier's plan to use the BlueBird satellites to bring connectivity to phones. He also calls out SpaceX, a rival to AST SpaceMobile.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

3 years

I decided it was about time I resumed blogging, with a curious tale of the inconsistencies between what SpaceX is telling CNBC about its share sales and what it reports to the FCC

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

SpaceX continues to pretend that its deluge system is a "flame deflector" (with no mention of water being involved) in an attempt to avoid applying for the necessary wastewater permits. Is FAA going to look the other way and ignore the test videos?

SpaceX

SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.

www.spacex.com

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 months

How is a $6.6B Starlink revenue projection for 2024 "exceeding expectations at a blistering pace" when SpaceX itself expected $10B in 2024 Starlink revenues just 6 months ago? Compared to those "expectations" it would be nothing short of disastrous...

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...

www.bloomberg.com

SpaceNews

@SpaceNews_Inc

5 months

Starlink soars: SpaceX’s satellite internet surprises analysts with $6.6 billion revenue projection

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Importantly, Apple will be using existing satellite spectrum, with no need for any rule changes from the FCC. However, the service will be limited just to two-way texting - no voice calls or photos unless they invest in a new multi-billion dollar constellation (5/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Elon’s “free” service means Starlink only makes $100M+ of revenue per year from Ukraine instead of a multiple of that figure… I guess he didn’t want a government audit of those costs after all…

Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

So Starlink’s revenues from Ukraine will easily exceed $100M this year and Elon’s claim of making losses is just completely made up. And now he wants the DoD to pay hundreds of millions more

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

“SpaceX had $4.7 billion in cash and securities on hand at the end of last year”. This is far more than anyone could have expected given capex/losses in 21/22, so large part must be customer deposits (plus probably stiffing suppliers). Has anyone looked at NASA payment schedule?

Micah Maidenberg

@MicahMaidenberg

1 year

News—Elon Musk tapped SpaceX for a $1 billion loan around the time he was acquiring the social-media company formerly known as Twitter. It couldn’t be determined why he took on the debt. He paid back the borrowing

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Its just that at a valuation of $130B, you need to keep coming up new opportunities before it becomes clear what the limits to growth are for the existing business (11/11)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

And @mdaneman now reporting that Germany is requiring BW-3 to “shut off operations” over most of Europe (anywhere within radio visibility of Germany)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

I see SpaceX is still desperate for money and doesn’t want to show that their revenues halved. And doing this ahead of any FCC ruling on RDOF auction participation must mean they think a rejection is quite plausible

Totally Quiet Podcast (TQP)

@tslaqpodcast

4 years

SpaceX trying to raise using June 2019 financials. That sounds really silly, but as few paying customers as they've had lately, not surprising. Guessing @TMFAssociates will have something on the raise soon if he hasn't already (which is quite possible for me to have missed).

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 months

As I said 6 weeks ago, what happens to Hughes’ business when Starlink mini is half the price for both equipment and service?

Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 months

Starlink is not doing well enough to get rid of the capacity and terminals they are building. So what happens to Hughes if Starlink cuts prices instead of raising them?

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

Note SpaceX received a large amount of cash (at least $1-2B on top of their equity raises) in late 2022 that wasn't recorded as revenue. The only plausible source for most of that is US govt, ie NASA Artemis downpayment and/or DoD advance payment for Starshield/Ukraine airtime

Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

“SpaceX had $4.7 billion in cash and securities on hand at the end of last year”. This is far more than anyone could have expected given capex/losses in 21/22, so large part must be customer deposits (plus probably stiffing suppliers). Has anyone looked at NASA payment schedule?

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

TMUS said it will use nationwide PCS spectrum: that means G block (1910-1915MHz UL/1990-95MHz DL). That wasn't part of SpaceX's July 2022 Gen2 modification application, implying any approval there will be even further delayed (2/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

Starlink revs are far below prior estimates at $222M in 2021/$1.4B in 2022. I’ve been suspicious for a while that growth is falling short and that the 1.5M “customers” noted in May did not correspond to paying subs. It makes DoD/Ukraine revs key in 2023

WSJ News Exclusive | Starlink Surges but Is Still Far Short of SpaceX’s Goals, Documents Show

Revenue at the satellite-internet business jumped to $1.4 billion last year but has fallen short of Elon Musk’s financial projections.

www.wsj.com

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

10 months

@Astro_Gee @jamiewithorne Did they hear spectral analyzer?

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 years

I finally got round to writing a blog post on the economics of the Starlink constellation

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Saying “rockets of this sort are expected to fail almost one in four times” is very peculiar: that failure rate, if sustained for more than a handful of flights, is a quick route to bankruptcy…

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

So will SpaceX be able to come up with a real alternative to Apple here? It seems like a tough ask to align the spectrum plan (which will have to be different outside the US), regulatory approvals and handsets/billing when Apple's been working on this for two years (7/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

Pointed reminder that applicants "are certifying under penalty of perjury they are technically qualified...FCC may initiate enforcement against applicants that submit threadbare or wholly unrealistic technical showings while selecting Gigabit or other higher performance tiers"

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

This is totally wrong, you don’t add the original amount to the amended amount. In fact it means they fell far short of the $500M claimed to have been raised in March even after 3 months effort. The question is why SpaceX encouraged Michael to print fake news?

Michael Sheetz

@thesheetztweetz

4 years

The day before the most important launch in company history, SpaceX files with the SEC that its recent funding round raised more than the $500 million it was seeking: $567 million in total.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 years

Tweet of the day!

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 years

Strange how seven weeks ago Musk announced that this "test article" would shortly be flying to 20km altitude, but the decision to "not fly" it wasn't announced until now...

Michael Sheetz

@thesheetztweetz

5 years

“As Elon tweeted, Mk1 served as a valuable manufacturing pathfinder but flight design is quite different. The decision had already been made to not fly this test article and the team is focused on the Mk3 builds, which are designed for orbit.”

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

"In the absence of a real world ex of a NGSO sat network offering mass market fixed service to residential consumers able to meet 100ms latency reqt, FCC staff could not conclude that such an applicant is reasonably capable of meeting the low latency reqts, so we foreclose such"

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

3 years

And just to confirm my suspicions, I hear from a well connected source who buys a lot of satcoms: "we all know that Starlink's crosslinks aren't working yet"

Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

3 years

One might suspect that Starlink’s crosslinks weren’t capable of providing any useful service… like the junk they launched in May 2019

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

19 days

The most fun rumor ever at WSBW: SpaceX is planning to buy the TMUS 800MHz spectrum that DISH held an option for and then do a lease exchange so that Ergen uses the 800MHz spectrum terrestrially & Starlink uses Echostar’s 2GHz MSS spectrum globally for D2D

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

The Feb 2022 order for 17 new satellites was a stop-gap for service continuity and it is unknown whether Apple might want to go further. Clearly Globalstar's decision to delay their refinancing also anticipated that a public announcement by Apple would make it simpler (6/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

@Joachimvoldseth About what you’d expect from Elon perhaps. Any self-respecting satellite manufacturer would consider a 1% failure rate per year once on orbit to be concerning, this is 1% per month.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

This is really useful data. What it doesn't state is cash burn, but with capex of ~$3B+ last year, launches accelerating this year, and depreciation only about $1B-$1.5B, its clear SpaceX still needs to raise $1B+ in the near future (despite Musk's statements to the contrary)

graham starr

@GrahamStarr

1 year

Exceptional story here from WSJ's @MicahMaidenberg @cdriebusch @berber_jin1 : Documents give a rare look inside the secretive finances of SpaceX. Takeaways: razor-thin profits in Q1 after years of heavy losses and a huge write-down on bitcoin holdings

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Most likely regulatory approach is making a limited experimental application (<=10 satellites?) which would be consistent with suggestion that initial trial users might have to wait up to 30 mins to send messages (3/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

My new report on the D2D satellite smartphone opportunity is now available, and as ever Starlink is likely to dominate the conversation (and eventually the market). More details here:

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

3 years

My op-ed in @SpaceNews_Inc “LEO broadband: Will this time be different?”

Op-ed | LEO broadband: Will this time be different?

spacenews.com

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 months

IIRC one of the controversies in the problematic 2018 SpaceX leveraged loan financing was that launch deposits, including for DearMoon, had been booked as revenue. I wonder how much of a refund will now be paid?

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

But bigger picture is that Musk seems to be actively seeking confrontation w/US administration on multiple fronts. Recent FCC filings read like prep for a lawsuit & Starlink are refusing to support DoD requests for interoperability. What’s the end game?

Starlink’s market dominance affecting DoD’s hybrid network plans

spacenews.com

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

21 days

Although this response barely mentions the altitude waiver, its clear Starlink's D2D system needs to operate at 350km instead of 525km (where there's 3.5dB more free space path loss), given the supposedly catastrophic consequences of 3dB less power according to this analysis

FREESPEECH101

@FREESPEECH1017

21 days

SpaceX files response to FCC questions.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

It’s quite something to blame this on Boeing and poor execution. Let’s not pretend there was actually a big enough market for Virgin Orbit to be viable…

Michael Sheetz

@thesheetztweetz

2 years

Richard Branson's satellite launcher Virgin Orbit $VORB once commanded a valuation near $4 billion, but now it's on the brink of bankruptcy. What went wrong for the rocket builder:

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

So the question then has to be asked why SpaceX wants to put more roadblocks in the way of Gen2 approval, adding to the confusion from their July 2022 2GHz modification proposal. Most plausible answer is that finishing Gen1 has to take precedence for the next 12 months (8/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

And what will happen if/when Gwynne leaves, which multiple people have told me is expected in the very near future? She’s supposed to be the adult in the room…

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

I couldn’t disagree more with this assertion, it has been the proximate cause of some of the most spectacular financial disasters in the satellite industry. A short thread… (1/n)

Filip investing in space startups (🇮🇱,🚀,🛰️,💸)

@fikocian

1 year

I repeat this phrase multiple times every day. The way to actually make money in space is to invest in a create businesses which use space to aid large and diverse terrestial markets. Those can grow big, deliver value and make this whole space thing matter. Amen.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Ultimately, the problem will be that if US is ~50% of global demand, network efficiency will be poor. However, Starlink Gen1 should still be capable of becoming cash flow positive and making life very hard for everyone else in the satellite industry (10/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

Seems like @ESGhound called this one correctly: will FAA be at all embarrassed by assertions like "Noise from the Raptor engines would cause a startle response of animals and would...reduce the risk of being affected by the heat of the plume"?

SpaceX's Texas Rocket is Going To Cause A Lot More Damage Than Anyone Thinks

On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a license for SpaceX to launch the first orbital test of Starship, the largest rocket in human history, as soon as this Monday, April 17th.

blog.esghound.com

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 months

There’s an argument to be made that SpaceX shouldn’t be valued at 60-80 times RocketLab. But if the valuations are going to converge, is it more likely that RocketLab goes up or SpaceX goes down?

30 And A Wake Up

@30andawakeup

2 months

You probably have about 12-18 months to accumulate $RKLB stock at a 2.5 to 3.5 billion dollar valuation. After Neutron starts launching, you won’t see that kind of valuation again. What say you? 🚀

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

And until Starship is ready, there's no point in launching Gen2. The question is how well demand growth holds up as Gen1 capacity doubles later this year. Indications of price cuts are a worrying sign that international demand remains weak, while US is still saturated (9/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

Compare this with the video posted by SpaceX, which was careful not to show water going outside the pad. Musk either doesn't care about upsetting regulators or is deliberately provoking them into shutting this down...

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

1 year

New water deluge system to protect against the immense heat & force of Starship launch

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

Is anyone going to tell the FCC that SpaceX’s promise that they would be offering commercial Starlink service before the end of 2020 has just been dumped?

Fraudamental

@fraudamental

4 years

@ElonMusk getting the cult onboard as SpaceX access to $16B in govt RDOF funding is at risk. The funding fits Elon's approach perfectly. Tim Farrer @TMFAssociates identifies the fraud opportunity "But as I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, bidders are not required to actually

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

"Given this lack of a track record of providing service to a mass market at any speed, no service provider that intends to use non-geostationary orbit satellites to meet its Auction 904 public interest obligations will be permitted to bid in the Gigabit performance tier."

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

SpaceX would not be profitable even at current prices with current manifest of ~10 paid launches per year. Fixed costs matter.

Eric Berger

@SciGuySpace

4 years

This article is well reported, but let's be real. Vertical rocket reuse is all of three years old. SpaceX is surely saving money on launches, and if the Falcon 9 weren't already insanely cheaper than everyone else, the company could cut prices substantially.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 years

“However, it’s possible that...” we just don’t know what we’re talking about so we’ll make up some random stuff that sounds great...

Meral Mengu

@MeralMengu

5 years

SpaceX's @elonmusk says Starlink user antennas will be like "UFOs on a stick" ▶️ by @13ericralph31 via @Teslarati #Starlink #SpaceX

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

Elon Musk: Starlink's greatest hurdle is user terminals not satellites - Business Insider

Elon Musk says Starlink needs to drastically cut the cost of its 'UFO on a stick' terminals to...

The rocket company is selling kits with a satellite dish for $499 to beta users, but that price likely hides the real cost of the high-tech devices.

www.businessinsider.com

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

Interesting data on the cost of Starlink: $300K for one year of service for somewhere between 45 and 135 users (ie at least $185/mo). That implies the terminal cost is well in excess of $1000

Dewayne Hendricks

@wa8dzp

4 years

Michael Kan:SpaceX's Starlink to Supply Free Satellite Internet to Families in TX School District: Early next year, Starlink will start supplying free broadband to the Ector County district, where 39% of the families have limited or no internet access.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

3 years

Here's a new blog post attempting to explain some of the background to today's 5G aviation debacle

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

Starlink has launched 9000 optical crosslink terminals into orbit and still can’t make them work reliably. Yet others claim with a straight face that in 3 years they’ll have “a second Internet backbone in space” that will change communication forever

Rivada's OuterNet Will Change Communication Forever

Satellite communications have always been a great alternative when there is no alternative. The trouble is, they’ve also always been slow, expensive, and finicky. Getting online on a long-haul f

www.realclearmarkets.com

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Wow, this is much worse than I thought. SpaceX is already getting people to pay at least $500/mo for service but claims it is offering a service that should be priced at $4500/month

CNN International

@cnni

2 years

Elon Musk's SpaceX has subsidized satellite services that are critical for Ukraine's military, but now they're asking the Pentagon to pick up part of the tab

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

When Musk proclaims everything is great, that’s when you should worry about the finances… when he tells everyone to worry about bankruptcy is the point at which the finances are ok…

Elon Musk has worried about SpaceX bankruptcy before — early on he thought it would be 'worth $0'

Billionaire Elon Musk warned his employees in a company email that SpaceX faces a "genuine risk of bankruptcy." It's not the rocket company's first time and it might now be the last.

www.cnbc.com

Michael Sheetz

@thesheetztweetz

1 year

Elon Musk is holding a Twitter Spaces discussion on SpaceX's first Starship launch. Thread:

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

SpaceX is very much in the same boat, but unlike Tesla will remain systemically important to the US government both for launch, and increasingly for defense communications (though not so much for rural broadband). So what happens if confidence ebbs away? (1/n)

E.W. Niedermeyer

@Tweetermeyer

2 years

If Tesla printed cash like Amazon or Facebook, Musk's character and personality wouldn't matter. But Tesla has always been financially precarious and dependent on valuations based on Musk's dream weaving: saving the planet, self-driving cars, Mars colonies, etc

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

OMG, Viasat loses a second satellite, Inmarsat-6F2

Viasat Provides Status of Inmarsat-6 F2 | Viasat, Inc.

The Investor Relations website contains information about Viasat, Inc.'s business for stockholders, potential investors, and financial analysts.

investors.viasat.com

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

In other words, Elon’s stated plan is an unworkable and unsustainable solution. But timing assessments should therefore also take into account when he really needs to make that attempt from a fundraising and political perspective

Paul Breed

@unrocket

1 year

My prediction:The pad will be repaired with a water cooled steel plate and deluge in ~3mo. The FAA/environmental issues will take longer than the physical infrastructure. Plate and deluge will also fail next launch. Flame trench is environmentally impossible at Bolsa Chica.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Elon has set the Starlink team a target of $1B in revenues for this year (which they are already getting close to). It seems like anything goes when it comes to meeting those numbers…

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Seems Elon will be doing some rage-firing shortly. First to go will be whichever poor engineer forgot to upsize the reaction wheels on the Gen2 mini sats, causing them all to be lost due to lack of stability (1/n)

Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

@VirtuallyNathan @starlinkinsider @planet4589 A little birdy tells me the problem may have been that the reaction wheels were undersized to stabilize these much larger satellites

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 years

Innovative use of the word “has” for a business that doesn’t currently have any revenues at all...

Michael Sheetz

@thesheetztweetz

5 years

. @chamath says Virgin Galactic " is a business that has software-like margins," which he says amazed him when doing due diligence on the space tourism company. "This is, I think, a really compelling risk-reward."

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

My CNN interview on yesterday’s Kuiper launch

Amazon launches first Project Kuiper satellites with goal of creating a megaconstellation | CNN

CNN’s Kim Brunhuber speaks with the President of TMF Associates, Tim Farrar, about Amazon’s new satellite launch and what it means for the rivalry with Elon Musk’s Starlink.

www.cnn.com

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

6 months

This misses the key way in which SpaceX shows “profitability” and cash flow breakeven: the stock-based compensation which is at least half of total comp and is realized through secondary offerings exceeding $2B per year

*Walter Bloomberg

@DeItaone

6 months

❖ Musk’s Starlink Profits Are More Elusive Than Investors Think SpaceX’s prized Starlink satellite business is still burning through more cash than it brings in. People familiar with the finances of one of the world’s most valuable private companies say Starlink has — at

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

7 months

As I said last month, "Watching the battle between Bezos and RocketLab to become "THE" challenger to SpaceX is going to be interesting. Bezos may or may not have the desire to do so, RocketLab may or may not have the money to do so"

Peter B. de Selding

@pbdes

7 months

. @RocketLab : To compete with @SpaceX @Starlink , we must copy its business model: rockets, satellites, services all in-house. @amazon_policy @ProjectKuiper @blueorigin .

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

The suggestion that "Fortunately for SpaceX, the company can afford to fail" is only true if today's test is portrayed as sufficiently successful for the next funding round to get completed.

Eric Berger

@SciGuySpace

1 year

Shit blew up—In the sky, on the ground, and on the internet. Some thoughts:

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

8 months

This week it has become crystal clear that some of the most experienced companies in the satellite sector don't believe there can be an ROI for additional capital investment in the face of competition from SpaceX. Some investors haven't realized that yet.

Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

8 months

Oh dear…

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

17 days

I’m told it’s worth reiterating this…

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

It seems the consensus on whether or not Boca Chica experienced "widespread destruction" is definitely tipping towards yes...even at the FAA...

Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

@ESGhound That’s the point of doing a Starship launch now. Pretty much anything short of widespread destruction will provide the hype needed to get the next funding round done, even if they can’t launch again at Boca Chica for a year or more

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 years

In summary: Kids get to make waffles, but have to tell parents when waffles will be ready. Kids decided themselves what share of waffles each kid got. But parents said how many waffles will be available in total and there’ll be independent supervision when waffles are handed out

Jon Reid

@JonTReid

5 years

FCC C-band order text is now up

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

As predicted, today Apple announced a free messaging service with Globalstar. What’s most interesting is how little Apple is paying, total revs of $185M-$230M in 2023 implies Apple is paying around $70M-$110M (or a bit more if duplex revenues go to zero)

Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

But given how many half-formed concepts were put forward, the only possible conclusion is that this was designed to pre-empt next week's Apple announcement of their own free messaging service with Globalstar. That should begin as soon as the new phone is released (4/n)

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Elon’s clearly just making things up at the moment. Suddenly his estimated “cost” of providing Starlink in the Ukraine has gone from $20M/quarter to $20M/month (apparently by including the cost of satellites SpaceX is launching to provide more peak CONUS capacity)

Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Here’s a puzzle: if Starlink has 25K terminals in Ukraine, how will it cost them over $20M to support these terminals for the next 3 months? If they gave away service completely free of charge, then that would be a cost of more than $250 per terminal per month

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

@VirtuallyNathan @starlinkinsider @planet4589 A little birdy tells me the problem may have been that the reaction wheels were undersized to stabilize these much larger satellites

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

SpaceX would never engage in a revolving door arrangement to hire retiring DoD officials… oh wait…

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

11 days

It seems Musk thinks that deliberately provoking an EIS is a good idea, because a Trump win will be enough to solve these problems...

SpaceX

@SpaceX

11 days

FAA Administrator Whitaker made several incorrect statements today regarding SpaceX. In fact, every statement he made was incorrect. It is deeply concerning that the Administrator does not appear to have accurate information immediately available to him with respect to SpaceX

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

DISH gives a pretty damning assessment of how SpaceX is refusing to commit to complying with the EPFD restrictions on NGSO systems

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

“We don’t have any financial information… we just want a piece of this.” SpaceX doing a great job of finding ever more clueless investors to give them money. Hence the need for ever increasing hype, like the direct-to-handset plan…

Timo Vainionpää priv/acc

@TimoVainionpaa

2 years

Elon Musk's position as the world's richest person is becoming more and more dependent on investor demand for SpaceX. via @wealth

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

Please send money now to help us make Q2 numbers…

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

3 years

However much people complain about Elon overpromising and underdelivering, megaLEOs have a fundamental advantage in conflict situations because there are too many to jam or kill. It’s the same reason DARPA wanted the Internet…

Megaconstellations 🌍📡🛰️🛰️🛰️🛰️🛰️🛰️

@Megaconstellati

3 years

. @golem cites @ViasatInc email to distribution partners confirming that the company's KA-SAT at 9°E providing broadband services across Europe has been suffering extensive outage since Feb 24 0400Z starting with Ukrainian spot beams. Cause still unknown. US DoD Among customers.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 years

Admitting the plan is to use floating platforms...

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

5 years

@flcnhvy @Inzilya777 @archillect Direct links aren’t needed to offer service. Starlink will initially bounce signals off ground/ocean relays to get from 🛰 to 🛰.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

2 years

Listen to my interview on @Marketplace about Apple, Globalstar, SpaceX and T-Mobile’s plans for satellite to smartphone communications

Apple and Starlink vie to turn cellphones into satellite phones - Marketplace

Two companies, two different strategies to make satellite communication go mainstream.

www.marketplace.org

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

4 years

We may ultimately end up saying the same about Starlink...

E.W. Niedermeyer

@Tweetermeyer

4 years

This is going to be such a magnificent and enduring monument to the profound disconnect between our collective overconfidence in Elon Musk's genius and his actual ideas.

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

1 year

As I pointed out, antitrust issues make separation of Starlink infeasible, this sounds more like the pump needed to try and close a new funding round, given how short of money SpaceX is at present

Charles Gasparino

@CGasparino

1 year

SCOOP: @SpaceX investors increasingly say they expect an IPO of its @Starlink subsidiary this year so @elonmusk can monetize some of his holdings to pay for @Twitter expansion etc., without selling more @Tesla stock. Musk owns 50% of SpaceX. More 345pm w @LizClaman @FoxBusiness

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Tim Farrar

@TMFAssociates

5 years

I find it hard to believe that otherwise sensible people can be this clueless about the implications and limitations of new technology...

Peter Adderton

@peter_adderton

5 years

Adderton"In the next five years, Telco’s as we know it may not exist. We may be buying communications (voice and data) directly from Amazon (Bezos/Project Kuiper), Google (Project Loon), SpaceX ( Musk), OneWeb ( Branson), Boeing, Samsung and even Facebook (Solar-powered drones).”

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