There are probably only a handful of people within the US who could even reasonably answer this question in depth, as you’re talking about LEO logistics, and the value thereof.

Like, you can look at historical satellite prices and adjust for inflation per se, but to really answer the question in depth we’re looking more at stuff like where the private space industry is at now in terms of economy of scale, what components are in the satellites (if they secretly have satellite killer abilities, for example, or spy cameras, all shit that would be black boxed on the budget) etc etc.

It’s a lot of money, but who knows if it’s a good deal or not? Almost impossible to say unless you’re an expert in the field.

Well I think it was smart of them to order them on Black Friday. They probably got a pretty good deal on them.

$250 million for a GPS satellite is certainly not outrageous. The govt is getting a discount by buying multiple at a time and leveraging the high up front cost of the first ones that include the design cost and higher risk of proving out the constellation

$250M per SV isn’t bad. The IIIs have historically ranged from $250M-$330M, depending on how you account for total program costs.

It’s the equivalent of 197,000,000 Big Macs

According to the article, they average around $250 million each. Or at least, they did back in 2018 when the contract was originally agreed upon. I'd argue that it's a fair deal with inflation/rising costs of everything since then.

I don't know what a whole satellite costs, but we are making and selling telemetry tracking and control transponders with integrated data payloads in the order of 10s of millions of EUR. So if just the radio used for sending the control signals to and from the satellite range into the 10 million EUR range, this doesn't doesn't crazy to me.

You’re close, but a couple of clarification points: We’re not going to launch IIIFs before the rest of the IIIs. At least no discussions to do so yet, but we have discussed pushing SVs 11 and 12 (the first two IIIFs) to launch right after SV10. The first two IIIFs are largely the same as the IIIs anyway. The primary constraining factor to our SVs on the ground is the shelf life of the batteries. It’s better now that we’ve switched to Li instead of NiH2, but still are a life cycle concern if they are in extended cold storage instead of regular charging/discharging as designed.

>huge anti jam implications.

Does it finally cover all of the flavors, including mint?

What about raspberry ? I hate raspberries

Oh yeah i know what that is

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Yeah - isn't GPS less effective the higher in altitude you go? Are they contributing to requirement they have in LEO?

Despite the other guy’s snarky comment about system system, he’s right that they are being added to the current system. They will replace aging satellites and join the current constellation of 31 operational satellites. You’re also right that there is a minimum number of satellites required for high availability globally. The geometry of the MEO constellation creates certain thresholds for different levels of availability. As we add capabilities to new satellites, it takes time to replace older ones and proliferate the new capabilities across the constellation for global availability.

No idea what a "global positioning system system" is, but these satellites will be joining an existing GPS constellation.

Trillions. Also GPS satellites are extremely useful and provide service to both military and civilian fields. $744 million for three brand new ones doesn’t sound like a bad deal.

> extra big cameras

A bit pointless on a satellite flying so far up

> kenetic weapons

Similarly a bit pointless to take them to such a high orbit, because it would be very impractical to fire them (more than 1km/s of delta-v for re-entry and it would take long time, so can be spotted)

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Do Starlink satellites have atomic clocks onboard? That's necessary to work with existing GPS equipment, otherwise you'd need to replace a lot

It’s unlikely GPS will be entirely replaced. Lots of platforms and equipment use the precise timing of its signals to do all of the functions they need. We already have requests for PNT in GEO and cis lunar space for accurate positioning on scientific, military, and commercial vehicles, which cannot be done from LEO. However, PNT data on Earth can be backed out of starlink signals as an unintended use of their service, but I believe that signal still requires GPS data from the aft antenna. There are at least two other programs actively developing PNT from proliferated LEO as well. The additional platforms providing PNT augment GPS signals to improve signal accuracy, minimize jamming effects, and provide redundancy to minimize adversarial ROI for attacking a GPS satellite.

Full replacement of GPS is possible, but won’t happen in this generation of satellites. My guess is we will have layers of PNT from mobile terrestrial ground beacons, proliferated LEO for resiliency, legacy MEO with the most accurate timing, and a persistent GEO layer for omni-present coverage to lower orbits and region-specific interests such as indo-pacom.

How is it any different than Air Force?

You have ground force and Air Force, space force is just the next progression.

I just think of the tv show with Steve carrell every time I read or hear anything about space force